Chapter 404 - 276: The Devil’s Workhorses Are in Position (2)

Chapter 404: Chapter 276: The Devil’s Workhorses Are in Position (2)

But as everyone knows, rules that are "not allowed in principle" are fair game in practice.

Zog quickly found this player.

A Prince from a certain country.

Unfortunately, he was a minor Prince with no right of succession, doomed to spend the rest of his life holed up on his "pitiful" tens of thousands of acres of territory.

To make matters worse, he had no Casting ability and couldn’t even learn the Secret Technique passed down through his family for generations.

So, he created a Mage account in the game named Human Emperor to make up for all his real-life regrets with a vengeance!

Zog also checked his spending records.

He hadn’t actually spent all of the thirty-thousand-plus Gold Coins. Over twenty thousand had gone toward increasing his combat power and buying cosmetics, while the rest sat in his backpack. In the game, whenever someone addressed him as "Human Emperor" and showered him with praise, he would toss them a little money.

What a poor kid.

Zog figured this little Prince would probably get along well with a certain descendant of the Yan Kingdom.

Besides this one player who spent over thirty thousand, there were several others who had charged more than ten thousand Gold Coins.

If this trend continued, the marketing expenses would be recouped in just a few weeks, and they would start turning a profit.

After receiving Zog’s guidance, Scrooge also stood on the Evil Dragon’s shoulders, rolling out one new scheme after another to encourage top-ups.

He added a "protection fee" function to the in-game NPC shops. Any shop within a clan’s territory would have to pay regular protection fees to that clan, with the resources distributed among all its members. The territories themselves, however, were contestable.

He would also intentionally release high-difficulty quests that took place in hostile territories. While the rewards for success were rich, dying during the quest meant a random piece of equipped gear could break. This forced powerful players to lead their followers on raids into enemy territory.

Inspired by the combat power rankings, Scrooge also created a daily spending leaderboard.

It didn’t track anything else—just who spent the most money each day. The top-ranked player received a special title, and their clan got a reward.

In addition to the individual spending leaderboard, there was also a clan spending leaderboard. This one didn’t rank by total amount, but by the number of paying members, with rewards as well.

This led to clan members urging those who hadn’t topped up for the day to hurry up and do so...

And all sorts of other outlandish paid features, like buying levels.

For those who wanted to level up resource-farming alts, you could directly spend money to buy levels, then run High Level dungeons to pay back the experience deficit.

But this purchased experience came with interest. If you didn’t clear this "experience loan" within a certain period, you either had to top up to pay a fine, or your account would be deleted.

A precision strike against gold-farming operations.

Yes, where there’s demand, there’s a market. Gold-farming operations were born within a week, and along with them, botting scripts.

Path of Conquest thus advanced triumphantly in a strange state of being viciously slammed in online reviews while its daily revenue soared.

Luckily, Scrooge was the one taking all the heat.

Zog, who was taking the lion’s share, quietly faded from the public eye.

Scrooge was a master of generating hype, often making inflammatory statements in interviews to redirect the internet’s anger about the game toward himself.

This cultivated a public sentiment along the lines of, "The game’s great, the developer is just a total scumbag."

Zog felt that in the future, any job that was guaranteed to draw fire could be handed over to Scrooge.

’He was a natural.’

Zog had been getting a bit addicted to Path of Conquest lately. Of course, he didn’t need to spend money to play. He had a GM account; anything he wanted, he could just pull from the backend.

’So this is what it feels like to be a whale in a massively multiplayer online game.’

’It really goes to your head.’

Back in his developer days, he’d never gotten to experience this.

Back then, in the games his own company released, he didn’t even have a GM account to play with. At most, they’d give him some in-game currency, which was nowhere near enough to become a top-tier player.

’How pathetic.’

After setting his character to automatically thrash the second-ranked player in the Arena, Zog wagged his tail in satisfaction. It was so stress-relieving.

After the physical fight, of course, came the verbal sparring.

"Just you wait! I’ll be back after I raise my combat power!" the second-ranked player shouted in a server-wide announcement.

"Go ahead. You raise yours, and I’ll raise mine. I guarantee I’ll always be higher than you."

As soon as he said that, a system announcement declared that the second-ranked player had purchased a Venerable Gift Package.

This package, which cost a hefty 77 Gold Coins, would trigger a server-wide announcement upon purchase, giving the spender maximum bragging rights.

Not to be outdone, Zog opened the backend and instantly sent himself a Venerable Gift Package, too.

The second-ranked player bought another one.

Zog immediately gave himself another.

This went on for several minutes.

’This game is so much fun,’ Zog thought.

Just then, Elsa knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Elsa was completely unfazed by Zog’s habit of slacking off and playing games at work.

It’s not like she could manage her own boss, could she?

"The Church has sent word that the Gate of Hell on the outskirts of Deepwater City has been erected. It’s ready to welcome the Devils," Elsa reported.

"Alright, got it," Zog nodded. "Here, come over. I have a task for you."

"For what?" Elsa asked, leaning in curiously.

"Memorize this account name," Zog said, pointing at the Venerable Gift Package purchase announcement popping up on the screen. "This is the backend interface. Every time he buys one, you click this button."

"Oh, got it. But what is this for?"

"Generating revenue for the company."

Seeing Zog go silent for half a minute, the second-ranked player thought he was scared and sent a taunting announcement: "Can’t take it anymore? Why don’t you just give in, and we can call it a day."

Zog immediately shot back, "I can do this all day. You’d better not run!"

Then he instructed Elsa, "Remember, every time he buys one, you click once. If you click too many times at once, he might get scared and run off." With that, he handed the mouse to Elsa.

"If you get tired of clicking, you can taunt him a bit. It’s pretty fun."