Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 75

"Age rating system upgrade maintenance?"

That night!

Ayin was just about to start streaming.

He’d already coordinated with Liu Liu, Sister Zhou, and Pineapple, ready to finally clear the last map in Left 4 Dead that they hadn’t managed to beat yesterday.

But just as he tried to set the stream’s age rating to 16+, he ran into an issue—

No matter how he tried to configure it, the system kept showing: [An error has occurred. Settings failed.]

As a top-tier streamer in his category on the Shark platform, Ayin had a direct line to their staff. He immediately called them to ask what was going on.

The admin’s reply was straightforward: the rating system had encountered an unknown bug, and currently no streamer on the entire platform could set a 16+ rating. They estimated it would take at least four hours to fix.

"F***, four hours?"

"Four hours? That’s midnight, bro!"

The admin on the other end sounded helpless too, only able to promise they’d fix it as soon as possible.

With no other option, Ayin let out a long sigh, got up, and swapped his CloudWave VR pod back into place.

Earlier that morning, through the Shark platform, he’d accepted a sponsorship deal to promote a game.

And the game wasn’t unfamiliar—it was the same one he’d been the first to try out at the Huayu Electric showcase: Fearless Sniper.

He wasn’t the only one who’d accepted the promo—Sister Zhou, Liu Liu, and others had signed on too.

Originally!

Their squad had planned to finish the last Left 4 Dead map and then switch to the promo.

But the sudden rating system bug had completely thrown off their plans.

Helpless, Ayin could only swap back to the VR pod.

Since Fearless Sniper was available on both PolarBear and CloudWave platforms, there was no concern about compatibility.

Soon, Ayin started his stream:

"Evening, brothers, we’re live."

The chat exploded in excitement—

"Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead!"

"Boss looks so tired, like he’s about to be executed."

"Teaming up with those three is basically a death sentence."

"Boss was the ultimate victim yesterday, must’ve been at least twenty deaths, right?"

"Pretty much, and the worst part is they took turns screwing him over—absolutely brutal."

"By the end of yesterday, Boss wasn’t even speaking anymore."

"The part where he wiped bile off his face had me rolling."

"You didn’t see the second-to-last map—he got bricked by a tank at the end."

"Oh yeah, the tank was going for Liu Liu, but she slid out of the way and it smacked Boss in the face instead."

"Hahahahaha, unlucky as f**..."*

"They really had some luck though—didn’t see a single witch the whole way through."

"With you saying that, a witch’s definitely showing up today."

"LMAO..."

The chat was filled with laughter and banter.

Ayin almost didn’t want to interrupt, but eventually, he spoke up:

"Uh... sorry guys, about that—"

"Because of the age rating system issues, ‘Left 4 Dead’ will have to wait. The official team is still fixing it."

"For now, we’ll stream the new game released today—Fearless Sniper."

Ah—

Sure enough, the moment he said that, the chat slowed noticeably. The audience seemed a bit disappointed.

But considering it was a technical issue, and Fearless Sniper had been heavily promoted as one of the hottest games, the disappointment didn’t last long. The chat picked up again—

"Alright, fine!"

"Fearless Sniper? Let’s see it!"

"Forget being polite, let’s f**ing see it!"*

"Hahahahaha!"

"Sure, let’s check out the game with the best graphics on the market."

"I saw the demo earlier, the visuals really are better than Left 4 Dead."

"Pfft, yeah, you’re ignoring the fact that their budget is the size of the Great Rift Valley."

"And apparently Fearless Sniper is also a second-gen FPS—let’s see how much they copied."

"Wait, are you serious?!"

"Hahaha, let’s watch and make some spicy comments..."

"......"

The chat’s understanding attitude let Ayin breathe a sigh of relief.

"Thanks everyone for understanding, really appreciate it."

Saying that, Ayin entered the VR pod.

The game had been preloaded earlier, so once inside, he launched the game and started a single-player campaign.

Whir-whir-whir—

The sound of helicopter rotors kicked in, giving him a strange sense of déjà vu—like he was back on the rooftop at the start of Left 4 Dead: Dead Center.

Thankfully, the next second, the screen came into focus, pulling him back to reality.

The first thing that caught his eye was a lush expanse of green.

A rainforest.

He was crouched behind a tree, holding a silenced pistol.

Warm, humid air filled with the scent of damp grass and decaying leaves hit him.

Vines clung to the nearby tree trunk, thick moss rendered with stunning detail.

A small stream babbled in the distance, beams of light filtering through the canopy, making the water shimmer.

Thanks to the advanced full-sensory tech, his vision, smell, touch, and hearing were fully engaged.

Humidity, temperature, scents, sounds, textures...

With hyper-realistic visuals as the foundation, the additional sensory inputs wrapped around him, creating total immersion—

it felt like he was truly inside the game world.

This was the complete form of VR pod gaming.

Truth be told, Gu Sheng had wanted to incorporate full-sensory tech into Phasmophobia back then,

but it was just too expensive.

Even Left 4 Dead couldn’t afford it.

Now, sitting in this high-end experience, Ayin couldn’t help but gasp:

"Holy sh—"**

"These graphics... this sensory feedback..."

He had to admit!

For a game with such a huge budget, both the visuals and sensory experience were far beyond what Left 4 Dead could achieve.

Ayin sighed with a hint of regret.

With tech like this, if it had been applied to Left 4 Dead, that game’s quality would have been off the charts.

Of course!

Such effects naturally impressed the viewers—

"This is what money smells like, huh?"

"Looks almost real!"

"Damn, the industrial tech level is maxed out."

"No clue about gameplay yet, but these visuals are fire."

"Hope Golden Wind can get their hands on this kind of tech someday."

"Imagine playing Phasmophobia with this—insane!"

"Wouldn’t that mean disconnecting every three minutes?"

"Hahahahaha..."

Just then.

A rustling of footsteps and voices came from a nearby forest path—

"No idea where the last one ran off to..."

"We’ve been searching for two days, no sign. Probably got eaten by a beast by now."

"Yeah, probably..."

As the footsteps grew louder, Ayin instinctively tried to go prone.

But—

this game didn’t have a prone feature.

He had to awkwardly shuffle his position, trying to stay hidden behind the tree trunk.

Rustle—rustle—

As two enemy soldiers came into view, Ayin slowly raised his pistol.

The virtual crosshair aimed at one of their heads.

Pfft—

A suppressed shot fired.

A small puff of green liquid burst from the soldier’s head, and he crumpled to the ground.

Ayin quickly dual-wielded his gun and aimed at the other soldier with iron sights.

Pfft—

Another shot, a symbolic muzzle climb, and a wisp of blue smoke.

After that brief firefight, Ayin fell silent.

A long, heavy silence.

At last, he understood—

why, despite both being shooters, Left 4 Dead was rated 16+ while Fearless Sniper had no age restriction.

Maybe Left 4 Dead had left too deep an impression on him, making him forget—

in domestic shooters, blood was always green.

Of course.

If it were just this one issue, it wouldn’t have left him so speechless.

The real problem was... the iron sights felt so damn weird!

At first, using the virtual crosshair to kill the first enemy felt okay.

First-gen FPS, after all—mature, refined, hard to screw up.

But this game’s so-called second-gen FPS system? It was all kinds of wrong.

The implementation was clunky, aim transitions felt rough, recoil feedback had zero punch—

it lacked the smoothness of Left 4 Dead.

Accuracy? About the same as hipfire with a virtual crosshair.

Terrible shooting feel, awful dual-mode balance...

It was hard not to suspect this was a half-baked attempt to cash in on the second-gen FPS trend.

The whole thing felt off.

The viewers noticed too, and the chat lit up with comments—

"Classic green-blood aliens..."

"Hahahahaha, this green blood is a tradition."

"The aim-switching feels so stiff."

"Yeah, like they just slapped the aim model in your face."

"I get that they’re chasing trends, but this 1+2 setup feels weird."

"......"

After a few more attempts, Ayin gave up on using the iron sights and muttered:

"Forget it. This aim mode needs serious work."

"I’ll just stick with the virtual crosshair. Accuracy’s the same anyway."

He stood up and continued down the path.

Ayin had played a lot of games, including a long stint reviewing weird ones, so he was used to all sorts of nonsense. His tolerance was high.

Even though the game was disappointing, he didn’t complain much. For the sponsor’s sake, he kept quiet and just focused on playing, not bothering with extra commentary.

All he could think about was when the 16+ system would be fixed—

so he could gather Liu Liu and the gang and finally finish that last map they’d left unfinished yesterday...

Meanwhile.

Binjiang Tech Tower.

Dusk had fallen, the streets filled with flowing traffic, the city lights sparkling.

In the CEO’s office, Shen Miaomiao tapped out the final sentence of the third section of her thesis, then let out a long sigh:

"Phew—alright, that’s enough nonsense for today. Time to clock out!"

Lately, she hadn’t been sneaking off to the meeting room to watch movies. Instead, she’d been focusing on her thesis in her office.

Yeah.

Wearing pajamas at home, sipping Coke, eating chips, and typing away—that was Shen Miaomiao’s ideal thesis-writing setup.

But after that Phasmophobia revenue report caught her off guard, she decided to stay in the office for now—just to protect her heart and blood vessels.

And to her surprise, her efficiency had actually improved since working in the office.

Closing her laptop, Shen Miaomiao stretched and twisted her waist.

After a little stretch, she turned off the office lights and prepared to head home.

It was already 9 PM.

She’d assumed she was the last one in the building.

But as she stepped out, she noticed that the office next door was still lit.

It was Gu Sheng’s office.

Wait, what?!

Her heart skipped a beat.

Was this guy secretly pulling an all-nighter to stir up some new tricks?

Shen Miaomiao felt a flicker of worry.

After all, that call from Yan Sheng earlier in the day had been a brutal wake-up call—

it wiped out more than 800 million from her projected profits.

If Gu Sheng tried to pull some crazy stunt now to boost game sales, her last 200 million might vanish too.

With that in mind, she quickened her pace to Gu Sheng’s office, knocked on the door, and then pushed it open—

"Hands up! What the h* are you doing in here?!"**

Startled, Gu Sheng turned from his computer, then burst out laughing when he saw it was her.

He tilted his monitor toward the door:

"Watching game streams is illegal now, Officer?"

"Depends on what game you’re watching..."

Shen Miaomiao strutted in, pulled a chair over to sit by his side, and crossed her legs.

Curious, she glanced at the screen and saw a streamer in the middle of an intense jungle firefight.

"What game’s that?"

Gu Sheng looked at her in surprise:

"Did you even pay attention at the Huayu Electric showcase that day?"

"Huh?"

Shen Miaomiao blinked, confused:

"That game was there too?"

"...So you basically just went to Zhongjing for a day trip, huh?"

Gu Sheng was speechless:

"XunTeng’s booth was massive, right at the entrance. You didn’t even look?"

"Uh... hehe..."

Shen Miaomiao scratched her head awkwardly:

"I was, uh, just focused on our own booth, you know?"

"Fearless Sniper,"

Gu Sheng massaged his temples:

"XunTeng’s 1+2 FPS game."

"Fearless... Sniper? Oh, oh, I remember now! They even sent me a push notification earlier!"

The name sparked her interest. She looked closely at the stream on screen.

And sure enough—

her eyes lit up!

Whoa—!

The visuals! The effects!

Way better than Left 4 Dead!

"So this is that game, huh... the graphics are really something..."

Her mouth curled into a grin, and she quickly pinched her thigh to stop herself.

"So... doesn’t that mean it’ll hurt our game’s sales?"

Haha.

Just earlier today, she’d been hoping for someone to step in and cut into Left 4 Dead’s sales so she could minimize her losses a bit.

And now, poof! Her wish had come true!

Grinning, Shen Miaomiao glanced at Gu Sheng, looking for a hint of anger or frustration on his face—

like she’d had when she was in the same position.

But.

Gu Sheng didn’t show much reaction.

He opened his mouth, hesitated, then sighed, nodding slightly:

"Yeah... but it’s not because of the graphics. It’s because of the marketing..."

Then, he quietly pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a deep drag, and exhaled a plume of smoke.

He gazed at the computer screen, looking a little melancholy.

Seeing him like that, Shen Miaomiao couldn’t help but purse her lips.

Logically, she should’ve been happy.

After all, someone undercutting Left 4 Dead’s sales meant she’d lose even more.

But for some reason...

Looking at Gu Sheng’s expression, Shen Miaomiao couldn’t feel happy at all.

Even the bit of satisfaction she’d felt earlier faded away completely.

The office was silent for a long time.

Finally, Shen Miaomiao spoke:

"...So... is there still a way to make up for this?"