"It's just a tentative name for now, for our meetings. I agree it's quite crude, and we'll definitely change it to an official name later," Isabel said. "If all else fails, we can let netizens vote for it, as the beginning of this cultural mega-project."
"How about..." Jiang Ye pondered for a moment, "we try to directly reveal the background?"
"What do you mean?" Isabel asked.
"Let's call the game 'Virtual Planet'," Jiang Ye said. "The game's explanation will be that this planet's origin is virtual, born from the imagination of billions of netizens. But as the number of dreamers increased, the company turned this virtual planet into a game. After the game became a massive hit, a barren planet was chosen to become the Virtual Planet theme park, where scenes identical to those in the game will be constructed."
"Turning your imagination into reality," Jiang Ye said. "What a great gimmick, right?"
Isabel's eyes lit up, like a struck match. "Old Jiang, you're brilliant! That way, if the ultimate cosmic theory is proven and announced in the future, netizens will suddenly realize that the game's background is actually real! Then we won't be deceiving the public, but rather informing them early on!"
Jiang Ye clapped his hands. "And after many netizens become deeply immersed, they'll believe that one day, a barren planet will indeed be used to build a Virtual Planet theme park. Someone might even release fake news, saying this project has secretly begun construction. This will create a stronger collective consciousness."
"What if it truly becomes a wildly popular concept, spawning endless games and movies? Perhaps we might even end up developing a planet for a theme park," Isabel laughed heartily. "It might even become a renowned tourist destination throughout the galaxy."
"That's too far off," Jiang Ye said. "It would be a miracle if this project could even turn a profit; we're not expecting it to grow into something huge."
...
A week later, Virtual Planet Game Company was officially established.
As a company that emerged out of nowhere, it secured astonishing investment.
278 large corporations from four planets and 66 investors poured three hundred billion into Virtual Planet Game Company, with numerous institutions indicating further investment in the future.
The media also launched an intense publicity campaign, bombarding the public with all sorts of gimmicks and behind-the-scenes videos.
On enterprise inquiry software, the owner of Virtual Planet Game Company was listed as "Zhi Jun."
The actual owner was Jiang Ye, but he worried that if the project failed in the future, it would tarnish his reputation. He also feared that if the project progressed smoothly and grew in scale, it would bring him a lot of trouble.
Therefore, Jiang Ye handpicked Zhi Jun to be the owner. This decision had many benefits. Firstly, Zhi Jun had already achieved great success in the cultural market. Whether it was novels, music, or games, Zhi Jun earned trillions in profit annually, proving its immense fundraising capability and enjoying widespread user acclaim. This explained why so many companies and institutions were willing to invest heavily in this new company.
Secondly, Zhi Jun was a highly confidential entity, making it difficult for the chaotic media to extract any compromising information, thus maintaining an aura of mystery.
Moreover, Zhi Jun being the owner was quite fitting, as the entire process of the Virtual Planet plan would undoubtedly involve Zhi Jun's work, with most of it relying on Zhi Jun.
For instance, Zhi Jun would meticulously review the virtual planet settings and novels written by netizens on the website, completing the illustration configurations.
Zhi Jun was also the main force behind game development. According to the plan, as long as the popularity of Virtual Planet took off, one game would certainly not be enough; it would inevitably lead to a series.
Cen Yemeng, Shao Wan, Isabel, and Liu Jizi each posted a screenshot on social media: the player registration interface for the Virtual Planet game.
The bosses of numerous tech companies also penned articles on social media, publishing their own short virtual planet settings and tagging numerous friends to solicit likes, creating a sort of literary competition.
Celebrities from the entertainment industry naturally followed suit, some inviting fans to register for Virtual Planet accounts, others sharing their own accounts.
Many novelists announced their intention to write virtual planet settings in the near future and to release related world-building novels as soon as possible.
Advertising bombardment was also indispensable. Virtual Planet Game Company generously spent fifty billion on publicity, purchasing a massive amount of advertising space.
Ten billion of this was allocated to the home planet, while forty billion was invested in other planets.
After all, the effectiveness of the collective consciousness field was directly proportional to the number of participants. In addition to fully mobilizing the people of their own planet, they also needed to engage as many extraterrestrials as possible. Even if the collective consciousness field still wasn't strong enough in the end, they could still profit from extraterrestrials through Virtual Planet.
Driven by multi-faceted public opinion, the Virtual Planet game, as expected, exploded!
Within 48 hours, it gained 170 million new users!
In the first week, it gained 1.7 billion new users!
On the official website of the Virtual Planet game, various settings were released in a surge.
The temporarily highly-rated settings were those written in advance by the artists organized by Isabel. They were all meticulously polished and refined, with clever concepts and diverse plots, thus attracting a significant number of likes.
The most popular few settings had already garnered over five hundred million likes and were being repurposed by various self-media outlets.
This was only the beginning.
Jiang Ye himself was startled by the pervasive publicity, realizing how quickly something that emerged from nowhere could explode with the help of the internet.
On a weekend evening, Jiang Ye and Cen Yemeng, as they did every weekend, spent a long time intimately together in their bedroom.
During a break, Cen Yemeng suddenly remembered something. "Our son wrote again. It's in my bag."
Jiang Ye got out of bed, threw off the covers, and went to get his wife's bag. He opened it, took out an envelope, and tore it open. The couple leaned against the headboard and read it together.
Dear Mom and Dad:
School pressure has been quite high recently. The school has established an independent enrollment rocket class, and I've been assigned to it.
The students in the independent enrollment rocket class are mostly selected from the top three in each class. Only about five or six students were admitted through family wealth or strong connections.
The goal of this class is to aim for the global high school academic competition. Achieving a third prize in the competition grants thirty bonus points for the college entrance examination. A second prize allows direct admission to any top university, even without taking the college entrance exam. A first prize comes with a substantial scholarship, and one might even get to study at some ancient, powerful, and renowned universities on other planets.
The competition questions are extremely difficult. In the previous two years, the first prize remained vacant because no one could master the questions. I've attempted the competition questions from the past three years, and they are terrifying, making my hair fall out.
This year's competition questions are rumored to be related to the currently popular Virtual Planet project.