Chapter 129: Hefty Greens

[Gothic Survivors] had ended up being far more of a success than the gang could’ve ever anticipated.

Granted they’d researched the hell out of gambling addictions to ensure they could ensnare gamers in the addictive loop of their bullet-hell, survival-roguelite, they had never expected it to reach the audience that it did.

Even now, a month and a half after the game’s hype had significantly died down, it was still maintaining a concurrent player count that meandered between 25K+ to 30K+ players on a regular.

For reference, [Crashout: Sin City’s] concurrent player count had remained lower than 10K+ players but consistently higher than 7K+ just two weeks after they’d ported it to PC.

Now, its concurrent players only hung around in the 1K+ to 3K+ range, but would often surge whenever they released a new DLC.

Still, it was impressive for what it was, but nowhere near the absurdity that was [Gothic Survivors].

Perhaps the craziest thing the gang had noticed, was just how much clones their game had spawned in just the span of a month on AppSphere.

Unsurprisingly, these games managed to do quite well... the only downside being that they were free downloads with a buttload of ads and microtransactions chucked into it.

This was all to say, that their game had had that much of an impact.

Not on the entire gaming landscape because that would just be bollocks, but rather in the niche they’d delved into.

But perhaps the greatest indicator of that impact, was the sale numbers of [Gothic Survivors].

One million copies.

Their game had sold a little over a million copies in just a month and two weeks.

Naturally, that meant a shit ton of revenue, both from AppSphere and Portal.

With the mobile store platform accounting for 428K+ in sales, while the popular online PC storefront made for 572K+ in sales, the gang was set to earn some hefty greens in gross revenue.

$1.71M+ from AppSphere, and $1.99M+ from Portal.

That, exactly, was what prompted them all to meet up today.

"Alright guys," Aiden settled onto the plush carpet alongside them, his expression serious as his gaze travelled across each of their respective faces.

"What do we do, going forward? Because clearly, we have some real gold here," his finger tapped at the floor and they all nodded in the affirmative.

"I’ll go first," he immediately followed up and said;

"We need to establish a base of operations,"

"Not here in New York, obviously, but in LA, for when we resume college," Aiden gestured vaguely with a hand.

"It doesn’t need to be anything particularly big or showy too. Just a little studio that can serve as a hub independent of our respective lodgings." he concluded.

That earned nods of agreement from all five, to which Clyde immediately noted it down onto a checklist app on his phone and said;

"By that metric, we’ll probably need to expand our team soon then, yeah?"

"Maybe." Aiden and Theo simultaneously replied with a reserved tilt and a slight shrug respectively.

That prompted both youths to look to themselves, their gazes acknowledging of their likened thought process as they briefly pointed to one another.

Gesturing for the curly-haired youth to take the floor, Aiden and the rest of the group listened as he spoke;

"Depends on what we’ll be making in the future,"

"For now though, I think we’ll be fine as is since we’re sticking to the grassroots. Nothing overly complex that would require a double A budget."

"Which begs the question..." Casper leaned forwards, chin propped up against two fingers of his interlocked palms, his gaze flicking past everyone’s till it settled on Aiden’s and asked;

"Will we ever go double A, or perhaps triple A at some point, Aiden?"

No one batted an eye at the fact that the blonde-haired youth had directed the question specifically to Aiden, and neither did Aiden himself.

Clearly, they’d considered him to be the CEO of their indie team, and they seemed intent on keeping it as such going forward.

Aiden on the other hand, leaned back briefly, his arms folded across his chest as he considered the question. Then he responded a moment after;

"Double A in the near future, maybe. Triple A, not so much. That’s filed for much, much later."

"After college?" Larry rhetorically inquired with a gesture of his pointed finger.

"Definitely after college." Aiden nodded in response.

"Alrighty, then." Casper remarked in response and everyone seemed to be of the same page.

"By the way," Aiden lips suddenly curled into a devious smile.

"Cody told me college’s a meat grinder. Said the only fun we’ll ever have, is in our first year..."

"So, who knows, we might all go bald before we graduate, lose our social lives and only ever get the chance to--"

Before the youth could continue terrorizing his friends with the reality of things, they all tossed the pillows around the couch at him, one that earned a hearty chuckle from him as the gang kept pelting him with pillows.

Soon, they got back on track as Benjamin spoke this time;

"We need to review the distribution of our cuts."

Instantly, the atmosphere assumed its prior seriousness, as Casper, Larry and Clyde remarking in sync;

"Agreed."

Though Theo looked notably unsure if they needed to change the structure they already had in place, Aiden always knew this was coming.

Knowing the kind of friends he had, he knew for a fact that it wouldn’t sit well with them getting far higher than they felt they deserved.

That was just the sort of honest integrity they’d built between themselves. It was also one of the traits that had kept them tightly knit even after all this while.

"Well, I figured this was always going to happen so how about this," Aiden began, pointing at himself;

"Twenty-eight percent,"

"Twenty-three," he pointed at Theo.

"Sixteen," he shifted to Casper.

"Eleven," he gestured to Clyde, Larry and Benjamin.

"How’s that?" he then asked afterwards, his head tilted slightly, brow arched and his palm gesturing outwardly.

"Fine by us." the trio replied after looking to each other briefly, their expressions satisfied.

"Ditto." Casper whipped out the peace sign, equally contented.

"Theo?" Aiden then looked to the curly-haired youth who simply nodded, his gaze reflecting that he’d come to terms with the new structure.

"Alright." he replied with a thumbs-up, his head bobbing once.

From thereon, the gang briefly bounced between discussions, one that eventually led to a very important question from Larry;

"So, what kind of game are we making next?"

That brought the room into a bit of a thoughtful silence, the boys unsure of what to build next.

It was also in that moment that they realized the sort of pressure they’d wrought upon themselves.

[Gothic Survivors] was a game they hadn’t really thought much of when they were building it asides getting gamers into an addictive loop.

Most of its building had been done whilst they were chilling, so the success that came with it was almost disproportionate to the sort of effort they’d put into building it.

That was what they believed at least.

Yet, amidst their silence, Aiden’s smile had remained notably reserved, one that soon caught their attention as he casually raised three fingers into air.

For a brief moment though, the gang looked on with a sense of mild confusion mixed with curiosity at their buddy.

Almost immediately, they seemed to pick up on what he meant as he spoke;

"Yep, that’s right. Three games."

"One’s a familiar territory. The other’s a bit of an unfamiliar territory. And the last just sounds insane, even to me, but I believe we can make it work."

Through it all, his buddies simply looked to him, the reality hitting them once again.

Aiden had been so focused on his beverage business in recent memory, they’d almost forgotten what he’d said on the day of their graduation.

Aiden hadn’t just up and decided to upgrade his {Programming} skill to the max for no reason.

Rather, it was something he knew he needed if he ever had plans on taking their little team to the next level.

It was also why he’d been mulling over what to build from the moment they’d finalized the production of [Gothic Survivors], hence why he already had three solid ideas to work with.

Soon enough, Aiden began explaining said ideas to them, one that truly was just as he’d said, the last one especially being the most herculean.

Yet, just like he’d said, they all came to the belief that they would be able to make it work.

Through it all, Richard had simply sat on his favorite chair, watching his son, and his other sons, chart and map out their plans for the future.

’I wasn’t even that resourceful at their age...’ the man couldn’t help but shake his head in pride as he continued scrolling down a couple feeds on his phone.

It was also why he ended up stumbling on the ad his son had produced for his beverage brand on the FaceSpace platform.

Seeing that it was steadily racking views in the low thousands, the man proceeded to check the comments section, curious to read people’s reaction to it.