The other team members who were to withdraw the money were transferred to the bank, betrayed, and ran away with the money. In the other ending, they stay behind. He had no idea why these drastic changes were made, but he knew that it had to do with something he had done, so he replayed the mission again, but this time he was betrayed by his team members as they shot him after they had managed to escape the police.
"Okay? This game is addicting, so how do you plan to advertise it?"
[I can create a website for the game to be downloaded from, but there are already several existing websites that will allow for much better sales; however, a $100 fee will need to be paid.]
"Just create our own website. I think you should be able to make it work right; I don't have that kind of money"
[Naturally, then can I have permission to create a company account on all social media platforms?]
"Go ahead? Just make sure to avoid exposing our location or situation."
[As you wish, sir] Nous replied as it went to work.
David became interested in seeing where each possible end to the mission was and continued playing the game for hours after that.
The graphics, the details, the story, and the entire setup made him adopt the mentality of his character. He also noticed that in certain situations, he was required to type in a reply as though he were actually talking to the characters themselves.
There were conversations between the characters. These conversations were smooth and sounded like something he would actually hear somewhere. Since the game supported a headset, David immediately equipped his, removing the need to type in a reply.
While playing the game, David felt the need to create some sort of motion capture suit to bring out the true beauty of the game. There were many actions he had to perform in the game that he felt would be better if he were wearing such a suit.
While David spent his time totally engrossed in the game, Nous, in its infinite wisdom, began its plan for advertisement. It knew its master would never agree to the fee, so from the start, it had already created a plan to advertise the game in the most efficient way possible.
====
In the early hours of the morning, a young man could be seen scrolling through his phone in search of more entertaining content on the now incredibly popular app known as TikTok.
"That should be impossible; have I seen all the TikToks?" the man said as he continued to scroll through the app. "Five thousand following!I should really try to reduce that number," the man thought to himself as he went through his profile before returning to the 'For You' page.
After refreshing it, the first video that appeared was one of some movies; however, unlike most movies he had seen on this app, there was no song in the background or soap-cutting video beneath it. It was just the movie, which meant that it was surely a funny part of the movie or some important part of it.
"Oh? It's a military respect video; which nation is this?" The man asked as he went through the full video.
Interested in seeing more, he opened the profile of the owner of the content, and as usual, he dropped a follow since he enjoyed watching things like this. He may not want to be part of the military because he didn't want to die, but he still enjoyed watching their edits because he was fascinated by their courage and overall coolness.
The man scrolled through to the bottom of the videos posted by the user and began watching them; however, the contents weren't the same as what he expected, but he still enjoyed what he saw.
He quickly found out that each video was an introduction to a character in a game, and the video following said introduction moment seemed to be an edit of their cool moments.
"How many characters are in this game?" the man asked as he continued to watch, now curious as to how many playable characters this company could fit into their game.
He counted until he forgot why he was counting and simply began to enjoy the stupid content the account created. It had everything; there were animated videos of their characters, even the serious ones, doing popular trends in ways you would expect someone with such a character to do.
From the voice-overs in the videos, he managed to grasp the general idea behind the game. The game was based on the idea of parallel Earths; each character is on each Earth, but you can play as any of them; however, your decisions can change the ending dramatically. Basically, everything was up to the players.
It was an interesting concept, and he wanted to see it at play. If the player's decisions decide everything, does that mean that it's like those dating Sims where they are given options to choose from, or do they get to just speak their minds and the NPCs will work around it?
The more he watched, the more annoyed he was that they weren't truly addressing that particular matter as though it were nothing. They introduced all the playable characters, which was a lot, meaning that when you unlock them, you get to play as them, and each one is as complicated as a regular human being.
However, the lack of more information on that topic made him even more curious, so he checked the name of the gaming company, Nous Studios, and without hesitation went to search for the game online. As soon as he did so, he found several articles related to the game in various print media and, finally, a website for the game itself.
"Oh? The game isn't ready for download yet; six more days to go."The man read out loud.
Since the game wasn't out for download yet, he spent his time going through the website to gather as much information as he could, since he was now interested in the game.
====
Due to Nous's manipulation, nearly 465 million people on TikTok saw a video from Nous's account. Not all of them were gamers; however, they still enjoyed the content, and their likes and follows made the account grow massively.
Apart from that, Nous advertised the game in any way she could; however, she didn't take it so far that she used illegal means.
Though she did use loopholes in certain laws to advertise the game, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that by morning, at least half the world would have seen it.
David, on the other hand, was still stuck on his computer playing the same game. He had gone far into the plot of the game, and unlike before, he had gotten used to the game's mechanics. However, the game had him talking to himself like some maniac.
[Sir, I would advise you to go to bed. The game won't end anytime soon and would take you at least two months and some weeks to complete for the default character alone]
"What?" David asked in shock as soon as he heard what she said.
"What do you mean by default character?"
[The game was designed to allow you to play as practically anybody you come across; however, you would have to finish playing as this character first]
"So, I can play as Snake later on?"
[Yes, even as Inspector Herman or Burns]
"Doesn't that mean that this is a trap? Nous this is evil… Very evil" David commented as a huge smile formed on his face.
If the default character was this entertaining to play, then he imagined how it would be for others. He could see some sort of online competition on who could unlock the most characters…. a competition on how far you had gone. People would do nothing all day apart from staring at their screens.
[Is that bad?]
"What? No, that is great; the point was to create a game that people would love to play for hours on end, and this is it; there are no dull moments, and the story is incredibly engaging." He said as he turned off the computer as he had spent too much time on it.
"Also, turn off my computer next time; I spend too much time on the game, and I don't want to get brain-dead."
[As you wish, sir] Nous replied
"Good, now while we're at it, how long before the game goes online?"
[Six more days... An immediate release wouldn't allow it to grow in popularity; however, a much longer release date would make the built-up excitement vanish, hence the six-day wait.]
"It makes sense, but during this time, do you have any other ideas? We could start something that would begin bringing in the money."
[We could offer my services to the world; however, that would mean that your next edit as the editor would be for a new server to handle all other processes that aren't mine.]
"I thought I created you with infinite storage."
[Yes, but I also possess nigh-? infinite information. Within said information is information related to everything about everyone, and I do not plan to ever mistakenly give that information to someone, so a different server is needed to host their data and allow me to easily provide my services without being afraid of releasing information they do not need to know]