"Boss."
Quinn was browsing the online reviews. In both visuals and the number of music tracks, The Pianist clearly outperformed Piano Tiles. They had expected The Pianist to stomp over Earth Games the same way GlamorArts Entertainment had done with Immortal Rebirth Simulator.
But they didn't expect Earth Games still had a trump card.
Vince, the man being called "boss," looked gloomy. He used to be Cynthia's right-hand man, but now he'd been reassigned as the acting head of WeChat Games.
"Why're you calling me? Hurry up and copy it!"
It's not their first time ripping something off. First time's rough, second time's smooth.
Vince thought to himself.
"It's not him, it's the boss lady calling," Quinn said, handing the phone to Vince.
Vince took the phone, but before he could answer, his eyelid started twitching. For a second, he hoped the call would just end by itself, but in the end, he still picked up.
"Hello?"
"I'm calling about the Happy Mahjong project."
Talk about the project?
Vince glanced at Quinn's screen. The player count for The Pianist was dropping fast, while the once-overlooked Piano Tiles was now chasing hundreds of millions of players. The gap between the two was like heaven and earth.
And this scene had already happened yesterday — just with the roles reversed.
Vince complained, "Sister Cynthia, you really screwed me over this time!"
The failure of the WeChat game directly affected him, the head of the department.
"I didn't screw you over. Who told you to follow the trend instead of coming up with something new?"
"Come on, not everyone has your sharp eye or the luck to land a great company, right?"
"Cut the crap. Are we talking or not?"
Cynthia was in a really bad mood today. If Vince kept rambling, she might just hop on a plane and fly over to yell at him in person.
Seeing that Cynthia wasn't having it, Vince gave in. "Alright, alright, let's talk."
If he couldn't get a win this time, he was done for. Even if the win came from the person who just beat him, now wasn't the time to be picky.
As for whether he could lose again — that didn't even cross his mind. When he was negotiating with the Chinese Mahjong Association, Earth Games had already leaked him some info about the game.
Mahjong itself wasn't anything new, but playing it on a phone? That was a first.
To be honest, when Vince first heard about this game, his first thought was to copy it. But then he remembered the contract both sides signed. Doing that would break the agreement and count as stealing trade secrets. If it got serious, he could go to jail.
In fact, after Earth Games showed off their mobile Mahjong game, Wu had already thought of putting traditional games onto mobile. But then Earth Games rolled out a whole "Happy Universe" plan.
According to the plan, the first game Happy Mahjong would be developed by Earth Games. The second one would be a joint project between two studios, and all future development would be handed over to WeChat Games. That effectively blocked WeChat Games from launching their own independent version.
Frustrated?
Sure, Vince had his own little schemes, but after The Pianist flopped, those thoughts disappeared too.
Challenging Earth Games head-on was almost a guaranteed loss. Since that's how it was, he figured he might as well make the most of the partnership and try to build a future together.
Cynthia didn't call Vince on a whim. After trying out Happy Mahjong yesterday and knowing the game would launch in a couple of days, she called to make sure there wouldn't be any problems.
On his way to the office, William received a bunch of milestone unlock alerts. With the new game mode update, *Piano Tiles* had quickly passed 100 million active users and earned five reputation points.
As he entered the company, William glanced at the musical staff above Cynthia's head — calm, no sign of emotion.
Just as he thought he could quietly head to his office, Cynthia called out to him.
"Happy Mahjong is going live in the next few days, right?"
"Huh?" William was caught off guard.
"I already talked to the WeChat Games team. They're getting ready to launch. But don't rule out the chance it might get reported after going live."
Cynthia had a point. The market was super competitive now, and Mahjong was a sensitive topic. Their rivals would definitely try to cause trouble.
"I get it."
William hadn't really thought about that before. After all, games like Mahjong and poker were ones he had played since he was a kid, and he'd never heard of them being banned — at least not for being games. The only bans he'd heard of were for online gambling, which didn't apply to Happy Mahjong.
Cynthia asked, "Do you have a backup plan?"
William shook his head. "Nope. If it can't go up, then it can't go up."
What could he do? He was just some guy from a rural town. It's not like he had any powerful connections.
Besides, if even Tencent's WeChat Games couldn't get it approved, then maybe it really wasn't meant to happen.
"Then let Tencent deal with it," Cynthia said. She didn't have a backup plan either.
All that was left for Happy Mahjong was the finishing touches. Leon had to add a few image assets, Tina had to finish modeling the male and female characters, then they'd run the game to check for bugs. If everything went smoothly, it could go live.
After that, William would focus on developing Happy Match Mania. The level design was mostly done, but it had been a frustrating process. He couldn't just copy the original game's level design — if he did, he'd have to do the same thing thousands of times for future levels. He needed to figure out a better way, and most of his time had gone into solving that problem.
At least now, the foundation was solid. Once the game was ready, he could hand it off to the studio. Future updates wouldn't be his job anymore. He didn't want to waste his energy on small stuff like that.
In the afternoon, everything was ready for the release of Happy Mahjong.
The release model was free-to-play with in-app purchases, and it was exclusive to the WeChat mini app platform. The reason they didn't launch it on other app stores was to have more leverage during negotiations—if they didn't offer WeChat Games some kind of benefit, there's no way they would willingly agree to share 50% of the profits.
When it came to marketing this game, neither Earth Games nor WeChat Games put any real effort into promotion. They mainly wanted to avoid drawing attention from competitors, so they kept things low-key.
Because there was no promotion, the launch of Happy Mahjong only had a few hundred online players, many of whom were friends and family. Everyone at Earth Games took part in the launch playtest, though the game hadn't changed much since yesterday.
The game starts with the WeChat Games logo, followed by the Earth Games studio logo, and then a health warning about responsible gaming—something William decided to include.
Once inside the game, players first choose a gender. The chosen character appears on the left side of the screen, wearing a basic white T-shirt and pants. The costume shop wasn't open yet. At the top of the interface are the Happy Beans, in the center are two game modes, and at the bottom are the backpack and shop.
Since this was just a test run, William never planned to put in too much effort right away. He figured he could always polish the game more once it started gaining traction.
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