Chapter 92 - #92: The Bounty Challenge? Sprout Studio Enters the Ring!

While the global gaming community was eagerly waiting for theHunter: Call of the Wild to finally go live, a massive, community-funded prize pool suddenly went viral across the internet.

It was a bounty challenge specifically aimed at game developers, and the accumulated pot had just violently shattered the $7 million mark.

Historically, prize pools were always set up by the massive game publishers to reward esports professionals or speedrunners.

This was the very first time in gaming history that the players were crowdsourcing their own money to actively bribe developers into making a specific type of game.

At first, the prize pool had just been a massive shitpost on a major international crowdfunding site. A frustrated gamer had created the campaign with a simple, provocative description:

[Why can’t modern AAA studios make a horror game that actually scares the soul out of my body? I’m putting up $150 to start a bounty!]

The rules of the crowdfunding platform were strict. The money went directly into a verified escrow account.

If the target goal wasn’t met within a thirty-day window, the campaign would automatically dissolve, and every single donation would be refunded to the backers.

Looking back at the very first comments on the campaign, the thread was full of sarcasm and ridicule.

[ Luca: Bro, what kind of game are you expecting for $150? I’ll throw in a dollar I guess. KyubiUzu: Do you know how much a high-quality horror game actually costs to make? $150 won’t even pay for a single character model. Cain.HERO.Komisarz: OP is dreaming big. Fuck it, here’s 10 bucks. Bruanshan: I’ll drop $20. I want to play a real horror game too. If it doesn’t hit the goal in a month, it just refunds anyway. jsHall: Wait, the target goal is $15 million?! You’re out of your mind. I’m donating $1 just to watch this fail. kindred: Hahaha, I guess I’m an investor now. Here’s a dollar. Please scare me to death! ]

But amidst the chaotic memes and the loose change, a massive snowball effect occurred. Gamers from all over the world started chipping in. A dollar here, twenty bucks there.

In just over ten days, the prize pool skyrocketed past $7 million.

As the total amount grew, it naturally caught the attention of the mainstream gaming media. And very quickly, the internet started tagging Ethan.

[ CozyGamerGirl: Holy shit, $7 million in ten days. I’m doing my part, here’s $5. xX_VoidWalker_Xx: If Nova actually enters this competition, I will instantly donate $1,500. LootGoblin99: Whale alert! Take me with you! AbyssalGaze: I used to think Nova was just an action-RPG guy, but Bloodborne genuinely traumatized me. If he focuses entirely on pure horror, it’s over for everyone else. I’m throwing $15,000 into the pool right now. I’m betting it all on Sprout Studio taking first place! shroud: I really hope Nova sees this. I just put $100 in. ]

“Ethan, are we going to participate?” Marcus asked, walking into the office and pointing at the live tracker on his tablet. “If this trend keeps up, this prize pool is easily going to hit the $15 million cap.”

If the campaign hit the $15 million mark before the deadline, the pool would become permanent. It wouldn’t stop accepting donations, either; it would just stay open for late backers to inflate the bounty even further. But usually, once a campaign hit its primary target, the momentum naturally slowed down.

“Is this bounty exclusively for horror games?” Ethan asked, scanning the detailed participation rules on the monitor.

“Yeah, pure horror,” Marcus sighed, shaking his head. “Honestly, if we had just delayed Bloodborne a few months, we could have easily submitted that and swept the entire competition.”

The suffocating dread that players felt in Yharnam was completely undeniable. If they had entered it into a horror competition, they would have easily taken first place.

A horror game? Ethan smiled quietly to himself.

He had an absolute arsenal of terrifying horror titles perfectly preserved in his mind. And every single one of them was a masterpiece of psychological trauma.

The rules of the bounty were ruthless. The entire multi-million dollar pot would go exclusively to the developer who took first place. Second place got absolutely nothing beyond their standard retail sales.

“We’re participating. Why wouldn’t we?” Ethan replied without a second of hesitation.

His gaming empire was expanding rapidly, and he needed a constant influx of capital. Top-tier AAA games required an astronomical burn rate during development.

He was already laying the groundwork for massive, hyper-realistic open-world projects in the future. Games of that magnitude required hundreds of millions of dollars and years of meticulous development. Every single blade of grass, every dynamic weather system, and every NPC routine had to be built from scratch.

To achieve that vision, Ethan needed more elite staff and more raw funding. Now that millions of dollars were just sitting on the table, he was naturally going to take it.

“Go draft an announcement. Tell them Sprout Studio is officially entering the bounty challenge,” Ethan said, his eyes curving into a sharp smile.

The current Sprout Studio was a massive, well-oiled machine. They had the headcount and the infrastructure to easily handle multiple projects simultaneously without bottlenecking their pipeline.

Ethan still remembered what an old industry contact had told him a few months ago during a studio tour.

‘I remember when I first met you. You guys were working out of a cramped, ordinary office building downtown with just a couple dozen guys. Back then, I thought you were punching above your weight.’

‘It’s only been a year, and you’ve built an absolute empire.’

The tech industry was notorious for burning out fast, especially game studios. Without a concrete long-term roadmap, many indie studios simply dissolved after launching a single hit game, the team members scattering to the wind to join massive corporate publishers.

But Sprout Studio was different. They were aggressively climbing to the top of the food chain.

Ethan followed Marcus out of the office and walked onto the main development floor.

The moment he stepped out, every single employee turned away from their monitors. They weren’t looking at Ethan for an answer; they already knew what he was going to say. Their eyes were filled with pure, unfiltered respect.

“Alright everyone, we are officially entering the bounty challenge!” Marcus announced, his voice echoing across the open floor plan.

“Ethan said it’s time to show the players what true fear actually looks like!”

The second the words left Marcus’s mouth, the entire studio erupted. The cheers and screams washed over the room in massive waves, practically shaking the glass partitions.

“Let’s fucking go!”

“If Nova is making a pure horror game, I’m already scared just thinking about it!”

“Sign me up! I’m applying for the horror dev team right now!”

“A pure horror game?! Let the boss cook!”

Listening to the deafening cheers of his staff, Ethan pulled out his phone. He refreshed his feed and saw the official Sprout Studio account drop the announcement.

[Bounty Challenge? Sprout Studio is officially entering the ring.]

In just a few minutes, the replies under the tweet had already blown past ten thousand.

[ Vantas: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!! ]

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