Chapter 7 - Is this Even a Game?

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

The hour for the video game experience round had ended. The emcee walked to the front of the stage.

"Alright, the video game experience round has ended! Did you guys manage to find a game you like?

"Let's move onto the next stage, but first, let's look at the results these twenty games have achieved so far. Please look at the screen."

The audience shifted their gaze towards playtime and the number of recommendations for the twenty games, displayed on the main screen.

The audience let out an audible gasp.

"What the… No way!"

"T-that game's so nonsensical. This is crazy!"

"How could the gap be that big?"

"I thought there were standards! Emcee, are there cheaters?"

Everyone was drawn to the numbers FlappyBird managed to achieve: a total playtime of 349 hours, 544 recommends!

On the other hand, the second place Hunter Island only had 92 hours of playtime, with only 330 recommendations!

The emcee was also shocked, as it was his first time seeing the numbers. He also had the same thought as the audience: the numbers must be wrong!

The judges were also at a loss, finding the numbers unbelievable.

How was this possible? There were a total of seven hundred people in the audience, meaning that they all averaged half an hour on this game!

Five hundred and forty-four out of seven hundred people were willing to recommend the game to others. These numbers defied logic!

Chen Mo wasn't too surprised, as the numbers were within his calculations.

In reality, FlappyBird wasn't some kind of alluring game; it was the exact opposite—torturous. If this game was put onto the market, the majority of players would close it after five minutes.

However, the target audience was in a video game design competition, meaning that the competition for FlappyBird wasn't mature, well-developed games, but instead disastrous entry-level games.

The other works weren't able to hold the audience's attention for long. Therefore, a majority of them chose to come back to FlappyBird to grind out their score. The more stubborn among them spent all their time grinding FlappyBird.

With that in mind, FlappyBird achieving so much playtime was quite normal.

The emcee held his earpiece and whispered for a few moments before raising his head and telling the audience, "I have just confirmed with the technicians, the numbers are indeed correct. These are the final scores of the twenty games."

There was still a lot of commotion going on among the audience.

Many in the audience refused to believe that FlappyBird could achieve that result, especially those who felt nothing for games like this and had only played the game for a few moments.

However, most of the audience accepted it as the truth.

"Is this game actually that great? It looks so simple it hurts, the game mechanics are incredibly shallow. How could it be in first place, and be that far ahead of second place?"

"What's so strange about that. Just think about it, how much time did you spend on it?"

"...at least forty minutes."

"I spent nearly an hour! My head is still hurting from all that grinding."

"Right? When I close my eyes, all I see is that stupid bird bobbing up and down, I can't help but play..."

"Look, there's nearly six hundred people on the leaderboards. The top two hundred are all over twenty and many of them over forty-five. Think about how long you played to get to twenty."

"Right... It was at least twenty minutes. If you didn't get the feel for it you might not even get there at the end of the hour."

"Exactly, the numbers work out."

"But still... That's insane..." The deniers were now starting to question their beliefs.

The emcee lets out a cough to alert the audience, "Alright, since the technicians have confirmed the numbers, currently in first place is FlappyBird, by designer number Seven!

"Up next is the judges evaluation round. After the evaluation is over, everyone in the audience will participate in the recommendation round after that."

After a pause, the emcee continued, "As a reminder, so far, FlappyBird leads in both playtime and recommendations. According to the rules, each recommendation is worth thirty minutes of playtime, meaning if Hunter Island in second place gets at least 128 recommendations more than FlappyBird, it has a chance of taking first place!

"Alright, up next will be the judges' review."

The emcee raised his hand, gesturing at the judges to start their reviews.

The judges looked at one another. Then Qiu Hengyang said to Shi Huazhe, "Perhaps the eldest among us should speak first."

All the judges were B-grade video game designers. They weren't working in the same company, therefore there wasn't any difference in position. As Shi Huazhe was the eldest, Lin Hai and Qiu Hengyang were being respectful by letting him speak first.

Shi Huazhe paled, moving the mic closer to him, and cleared his throat.

"Is this even a game?! I'll be the first to disapprove of it! If this can be considered a game, then wouldn't just anyone be able to make a game?!

"Is a street artist who sings a pop star?!

"Is a graffitist an artist?!

"Hitting enter "a couple more times when writing prose, is that a modern poet?!

"Garbage!

Shi Huazhe was visibly angry, and he even gave the table a good hit with his knuckles.

"First, this game has no story, the playstyle is mundane, the graphics are simple, and the controls are terrible! This thing doesn't match the criteria of a game at all!

"Second, this game was a cop out. It takes advantage of players trying to beat each other's score in order to artificially inflate the playtime!

"All the stats that you see, no matter the play time or recommendations, are all pointless! Why? It's because it's unorthodox!

"Therefore, as you can tell, I'm strongly against this being in first place!"

After finishing, Shi Huazhe pushed away the mic, breathing heavily.

"Yeah! Mr. Shi said it well!"

Someone yelled out, and the audience followed it up with roaring laughter.

It was from a competitor, most likely the designer of Hunter Island.

Chen Mo calmly twisted open the cap of his water bottle and took a sip. He completely expected such a reaction from Shi Huazhe.

Obviously, Shi Huazhe strongly disliked games like this, because he wasn't good at them and didn't enjoy grinding his score.

Moreover, Chen Mo's Super Focuser had forced him to torture himself in the game for ten whole minutes; all this pent up anger was normal.

The emcee had obviously not expected Shi Huazhe to be so furious, and quickly changed the topic, "Alright, Mr. Shi Huazhe had expressed his opinion! Next up, Mr Lin Hai."

Lin Hai looked at Shi Huazhe, then back at FlappyBird. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, he hesitantly turned on his mic.

"This game… I think Mr Shi Huazhe raises good points, the game is indeed quite shallow and has some pretty basic mechanics. In terms of quality, it doesn't quite fit to be the champion of this competition.

After a pause, Lin Hai said, "However, I think if it's able to get a result like this relatively high score in both playtime and recommends, it means that the players think it's worthy. Therefore, I maintain my stance: I'll leave the final decision to the audience."