This wave of negative public opinion had no impact whatsoever on the enthusiasm of Ghost Realm players. On the contrary, it incited the rebellious psychology of some players.

What did they mean by “this game has warped values, doesn’t respect human rights, and anyone who loves playing it is a masochist”?—I insist on playing it!

With this mindset, some players simply went and bought a Qihang gaming cabin to play at home, and some even topped up 100 hours of playtime consecutively, planning to become permanent residents of the Ghost Realm.

Players like Qin Xiaorou, who didn’t pay much attention to Weibo trending searches, felt absolutely no ripples in their hearts. The next day, they continued going to the experience center, booting up Ghost Realm, and playing the content they were interested in.

On the first day of the game’s launch, according to backend statistics from Qihang’s Marketing Department, the total online playtime in the Hua Nation region was 20 million hours.

On the second day of launch, the online playtime was 16 million hours. On the third day, it remained around 16 million hours.

In other words, the game’s “three-day retention rate” was as high as 80%!

Most games experienced a peak in online numbers on their launch day. Following early-stage marketing and hype, many players would boot up a new game with a “let’s try it out” mentality.

But on the second day, they wouldn’t open it again.

Many players would “abandon the game” because they didn’t like the genre, the game’s quality was poor, they didn’t have time to play, they didn’t want to spend money (P2W), and so on.

For the players of Ghost Realm, only about 20% abandoned the game, while the remaining 80% continued to log online the next day. Such a terrifying retention rate was enough to prove this game’s appeal.

Luo Hang shared this good news with Xie Yunfan.

Don’t be fooled by the high revenue of holographic games; the profit margins actually weren’t as good as mobile games. Because the development costs for a holographic game were massive, and the operational maintenance of gaming cabins, rent for experience centers, and employee salaries were all significant expenses.

After deducting these costs, the net profit was less than 50%.

Fortunately, Ghost Realm retained its first wave of players. As long as they maintained an online playtime of over 10 million hours per day, they could recoup their costs within half a month.

The second month would be pure profit!

Since Ghost Realm wasn’t a multiplayer online fighting game, they couldn’t hold esports tournaments to maintain its popularity long-term. Therefore, the first wave of events after launch was incredibly important.

Xie Yunfan placed great importance on this event. For the following period, he stayed at the company every day, supervising the progress of each team.

At the same time, the players of Ghost Realm were in a highly enthusiastic pioneering phase.

Players who loved challenges finished fighting King Qinguang and went on to encounter King Chujiang in the Ice Hell, getting smashed to death repeatedly by King Chujiang’s ultimate move of hurling ice blocks everywhere.

Various gaming streamers howled in agony in their broadcast rooms every day. Passersby browsing platforms like Blue Fish or Spirit Cat could casually open the front page and see broadcast rooms with titles related to “Pioneering the Ghost Realm.” This game had already become a frequent guest in the streaming world.

Some people even said that Ghost Realm was feeding quite a few small streamers!

As long as you streamed this game, you were guaranteed to get traffic. After all, there were plenty of people who loved watching the spectacle of streamers dying repeatedly.

Some streamers took a different approach. Instead of fighting bosses, they streamed treasure hunting. Every time the Treasure Hunting Compass spun, the streamer acted like they were waiting for a lottery draw, and the viewers in the broadcast room were also highly anticipating the “draw” results.

“What treasure will we dig up this time? Let me see… Fuck, it’s the most worthless spirit talisman again! Let’s continue. Before spinning the compass next time, I need to go wash my hands!”

There were also streamers leading everyone to explore the map.

The Ghost Realm’s map was incomparably massive. The achievement points for photo check-ins were densely packed; it was definitely impossible to finish them all in two or three days.

For example, climbing to Feiyun Peak, the highest point of Mount Luofu, required a lot of mechanical skill.

One streamer broadcasted themselves climbing Feiyun Peak for an entire afternoon.

“Although you can fly in the Wandering Soul state, it consumes stamina. Once the stamina bar in the top right corner drops to 0, we can’t be a wandering soul anymore and will fall down. It’s simply impossible to climb Feiyun Peak in one breath.”
“There’s a protruding rock ahead. We’ll climb onto the rock first, wait for our stamina to recover, and then climb up another segment to land on that big tree.”
“Take it in stages, climb slowly, don’t rush!”

Countless people in the broadcast room watched the streamer climb the mountain with great relish.

The overall color palette of the Ghost Realm’s scenery leaned toward dim and gloomy, but the landscapes of the Five Mountains had huge differences.

Mount Luofu, for instance, was an incredibly steep and treacherous mountain. It had countless peaks large and small, with waterfalls on every mountain and flowing springs everywhere. The scenery was exceptionally beautiful.

In contrast, Mount Baodu had a flat summit and a broad field of vision, with a massive number of ghost villages built among the mountains. This served as the residential area of the Ghost Realm. The ghost villages were connected piece by piece, and at night, unique gloomy lights would turn on, looking like specks of starlight from afar.

The spectacular Sea of Spider Lilies featured red flowers converging into a vast expanse, looking as if they had been dyed with blood, emitting a bizarre glow under the moonlight.

Then there was the River of Forgetfulness. The boundless, luminescent green river looked like an endless ribbon cutting across the Ghost Realm. It was said that some ghosts refused to cross the river no matter what because crossing the River of Forgetfulness and drinking Meng Po’s soup meant forgetting everything.

The bizarre and wondrous landscapes attracted many players to check in.

Some streamers were doing “Scenic Record Achievements,” while others were obsessed with the Random Encounter system, studying the side storylines.

“Gongsun Jiuniang appears in the desolate graveyard at the foot of the mountain, right next to the deepest tombstone, and only when there are heavy winds!”
“Some random encounter quests are also tied to the weather in the Ghost Realm. Don’t just blindly try to trigger them; if the weather isn’t right, you just won’t run into them.”
“There is a lot of content to explore in the Random Encounter system. Story enthusiasts can take their time finding them. Friendly reminder: cowards should not enter that courtyard in the southern wilderness!”

Some players refused to listen to the streamers’ warnings. Driven purely by morbid curiosity, they went to investigate the isolated courtyard in the southern wilderness.

In the dead of night, a gorgeous woman appeared in the courtyard.

The woman was enchanting and charming. She proactively clung to the player and, with a gentle voice, pitifully begged the player to take her in.

Caught off guard, the player agreed.

During the night, the player accidentally stumbled upon an extremely terrifying scene—when the female ghost took off her clothes to sleep, a layer of beautiful human skin slowly peeled off like cracked wall paint, revealing the hideous, terrifying, and ugly appearance underneath!

Player: “Holy crap!”

This bizarre scene directly scared people out of their wits!

System: Random Encounter Side Quest “Painted Skin” unlocked.

The player was pulled into the terrifying legend of Painted Skin.

It turned out there was a type of ghost that could peel off human skin alive, paint on it, and then disguise herself as a beautiful woman to deceive people everywhere. She herself was ugly and terrifying, but after donning the human skin, she appeared exceptionally beautiful.

Players: “…”

Your Ghost Realm truly has all sorts of weirdos! Do story enthusiasts have to suffer this kind of stimulation too?

The terrified players ran to the forums to post: “Let me tell everyone a secret. There’s a particularly fun random encounter quest in the courtyard in the southern wilderness. You must go check it out.”

More and more players fell for the trap and were scared into screaming.

Aside from romance and horror storylines, there were also friendship-oriented random encounters that sparked passionate discussions among players.

“I like the story of Soul Accompanies Soulmate. Even in death, Ye Sheng had his ghost stay by Ding Chenghe’s side and even acted as a teacher for his good friend’s son. So awesome!”
“And that Tian Qilang, what a real man! To help his friend get revenge, he resurrected on the spot after his head was cut off, and didn’t die completely until he hacked his enemy to death.”
“After finishing this side quest, I went back and beat up my bro. What a plastic friendship; all he knows is secretly eating my snacks every day.”

Best friends were also chatting privately: “Have you played the Soul Accompanies Soulmate encounter? If I die, I’ll turn into a ghost and follow you around, okay~”
“Get lost. I don’t want a female ghost floating around behind my back.”
“The little boat of friendship flips over just like that!”
…

The forum sub-section for the holographic game Ghost Realm had been very lively lately.

Challenge players were discussing how to beat bosses. After beating King Qinguang and King Chujiang, they moved on to the next one, Emperor Song. The joy of pioneering bosses was the reason they stayed in Ghost Realm.

Treasure hunters were showing off the various magical items they had dug up. Some lucky ones had already saved up over a hundred thousand Nether Coins.

Scenery lovers were figuring out how to complete the Scenic Record achievements. Feiyun Peak, the highest summit of Mount Luofu, had hard-stuck countless players. Some bigwigs directly recorded their process of climbing Feiyun Peak and shared it on the forum, attracting countless likes and saves.

Story players included those who liked Qiao Sheng and Liancheng, those who liked Nie Xiaoqian and Ning Caichen, and those who were scared to pieces by Painted Skin. The rich random encounter quests gave everyone plenty to discuss with relish.

A week after launch, the heat remained undiminished.

Half a month after launch, the online rate was still very stable.

Originally, people thought a niche-style game like Ghost Realm would lose its heat after three days at most. Who would have thought the player stickiness for this game would be so high?

It had been half a month, and the #GhostRealm topic consistently stayed in the top three of Weibo’s trending chats, with countless new posts in the forum section!

Their peers felt an immense threat.

Imperial Capital, Cool Play Group Holographic Game Operations Team.

Listening to his subordinate’s report, Duan Yuanxiu frowned slightly: “Ghost Realm has been out for half a month. The gameplay is very rich, which retained the first wave of players. However, no matter how much gameplay a single-player game has, there is always a point where they run out of things to play.”

Currently, aside from competitive games like Mecha Apprentice, the remaining holographic games like Starry Sky Walk and Zombie Siege were basically single-player exploration or single-player escape games, equivalent to upgraded versions of old “VR games.”

Because the player data for holographic games was dozens of times larger than mobile games, the server requirements were extremely high. Only the most advanced quantum computers could handle the data processing for multiplayer networking.

Ensuring the servers didn’t lag was also a difficult problem; the industry hadn’t completely conquered this technology yet.

Cool Play was currently researching multiplayer online network servers and collaborating with a professional quantum computing team. They estimated that in two years, they could launch a large-scale multiplayer online holographic game.

This project was Cool Play’s S-tier confidential project. Duan Yuanxiu didn’t know the specific progress. He believed that when the time came, Cool Play would become the first company in the world to create a large-scale multiplayer online holographic MMO, making the industry drop their glasses in shock.

But right now, they couldn’t produce this “ultimate weapon” yet.

Recently, Qihang’s market share showed a clear upward trend. The launch of Ghost Realm had impacted Cool Play’s classic game Zombie Siege. Both were horror styles, but Ghost Realm‘s gameplay was obviously far richer than the zombie game.

Revenue for Cool Play’s Zombie Siege had plummeted. The board of directors hoped they could turn the situation around as soon as possible, making the launch of Vampire Legend 2 imminent.

The Marketing Manager said, “We privately surveyed over a thousand Ghost Realm players. Currently, there are about 9 side quest storylines in this game. In half a month, most players have finished them.”
“There should be about 10 bosses. The streamer teams’ pioneering progress has already reached the 9th boss, King Pingdeng, and they’ve fought to the 17th level of hell. Clearing the game is just around the corner. As for the scenery lovers, after half a month, they’ve almost finished touring the map.”

Duan Yuanxiu said calmly, “There’s always a time when they get bored of playing it. Ghost Realm‘s popularity will start declining in a week at most. We’ve chosen to officially launch on August 14th to snatch all of Ghost Realm‘s players away!”

He had a lot of confidence in Vampire Legend 2. After all, it was a world-renowned IP with a massive batch of die-hard fans. Moreover, this game came from a top-tier European production company. The art style was excellent, the magic system’s playability was high, and the overall storyline was considered moving.

As soon as Vampire Legend 2 officially launched, it would be the day Ghost Realm had to step aside.

Cool Play could fight a beautiful turnaround battle.

Sweeping away the gloominess he had felt recently, Duan Yuanxiu smiled and said, “Have the regional marketing departments get ready. Starting August 5th, we officially announce the launch.”

---

Half a month passed, and Ghost Realm‘s boot rate remained consistently stable. However, as more and more gameplay elements were unlocked and massive amounts of “spoiler threads” appeared on the forums, players’ enthusiasm for the game was gradually waning.

This was very normal. For an open-world single-player game to maintain its popularity for this long was already extremely rare.

On August 5th, a promotional banner for “Vampire Legend 2 Launching Soon” parachuted to the number one trending spot across all platforms.

Social platforms and short video platforms were full of reports about this game. Cool Play officially confirmed the launch date for Vampire Legend 2. Many players excitedly stated that they had waited two years for this game, and it was finally launching!

Cool Play’s bombardment-style marketing was even more terrifying than Luo Hang’s back then.

Aside from the internet, posters for Vampire Legend 2 covered the streets and alleys. Halfway through popular TV dramas, pop-up ads for the game’s launch would interrupt the broadcast.

They even invited a highly recognized national celebrity to be their spokesperson, having him put on vampire makeup to shoot a promotional video.

The celebrity’s fans left excited comments: “Brother is so handsome!” “This game looks fun at first glance, I’ve already pre-registered!”

Cool Play Entertainment came in aggressively. This overwhelming marketing method meant that even passing ants would know Vampire Legend 2 was about to launch.

Xie Yunfan was very calm.

When Luo Hang decided to release Ghost Realm during the summer vacation slot, he knew this day would come.

If this wave of Ghost Realm players was completely sucked away by their opponent, their subsequent profitability would be halved at best, and they would very likely just die out.

After all, players loved novelty. With a new game out, abandoning an old game was perfectly normal.

The Ghost Festival event was crucial.

Xie Yunfan privately sought out Luo Hang and said, “I’ve already finished the content for the Ghost Festival event. We’re doing final testing these few days. Once complete, it can be launched.”

Luo Hang said, “Vampire Legend 2 will launch on August 14th. According to our original plan, our event is on August 18th. Can we move it up a few days? I want to face off against them directly so our players aren’t snatched away.”

Xie Yunfan frowned and said, “The Ghost Festival is the grandest holiday in the Ghost Realm. The 15th day of the 7th lunar month happens to fall exactly on August 18th. I don’t want to disrupt our own pacing because of the opponent’s launch date.”

He paused, then added, “Besides, the Ghost Festival doesn’t just happen this year; we can continue running events for next year’s Ghost Festival too. In the future, if we have crossover games, this holiday can serve as a fixed event day, and Ghost Realm can continue to ride the coattails of the new game’s popularity.”

Luo Hang froze.

Crossover games? He hadn’t even thought about that.

Luo Hang realized that Xie Yunfan was a highly principled person. Whenever it involved world-building lore—like the date of the Ghost Festival—he wouldn’t yield.

Luo Hang smiled and compromised, “Alright, we’ll do it your way. The Ghost Festival event will still launch on August 18th. However, on the 14th, facing the impact of the new game Vampire Legend 2, we still need some countermeasures.”

We can’t just watch helplessly as our players get snatched away, right?

Some players, once they leave for a new game, will never return!

Xie Yunfan thought for a moment and said, “We can officially announce the Ghost Festival event on the 14th and start a pre-heat for it. For example, open a limited-time Treasure Hunting system that grants massive amounts of Nether Coins during those days, allowing players to save up some money in advance.”

Luo Hang’s eyes lit up: “Great idea!”

Xie Yunfan stood up and said, “Then I’ll go make the pre-heat event right now. I’ll tweak the data for the Treasure Hunting system and hand it to you within three days.”

Luo Hang said, “Okay, thanks for the hard work.”

---

Over the next few days, the hype for Vampire Legend 2 continued to climb. The sweeping marketing campaign by Cool Play’s operations team indeed achieved excellent results. It was said that the number of players pre-registering for this game on Cool Play gaming cabins even reached 8 million.

The official account even specially released an “8 Million Pre-registrations” poster.

The number of pre-registrations alone far exceeded the 7 million online players Ghost Realm had on launch day, not to mention the massive number of players who didn’t pre-register and would just play directly at home.

Cool Play gaming cabins already had a domestic market share nearly 10% higher than Qihang’s, so this data also matched the popularity of a blockbuster IP.

Time passed quickly. At 12:00 PM on August 14th, Vampire Legend 2 launched simultaneously worldwide!

Trending lists, various official media, and gaming forums were almost entirely filled with news of Vampire Legend 2‘s launch.

At 12:00 PM, long lines formed at gaming cabin experience centers everywhere. Cool Play gaming cabins were packed to capacity, and backend statistics showed the number of boots reached 10 million.

Players discovered that this game was actually free!

After booting up a Cool Play gaming cabin, you only needed to pay the usage fee for the cabin itself. Vampire Legend 2 was free and didn’t charge playtime fees.

A free game naturally attracted even more players.

Consequently, at 8:00 PM that night, the boot volume for Vampire Legend 2 hit a new high, breaking a historical record of 15 million!

The marketing team pushed pre-prepared topics up the trending lists, with many players stating, “This game is free, it’s so conscientious!”

Xie Yunfan paid a little attention to the public opinion trends and couldn’t help but find it funny.

In fact, anyone who had played enough games knew that there was no such thing as a truly free lunch in this world; free games were the biggest traps of all.

It was free on the surface, but when you reached the late game, if you didn’t buy gear from the mall, synthesize weapons, or slot various gems, you simply couldn’t pass the quests. If they threw in “probability-based synthesis,” it became a massive money pit.

In certain free online games, players with bad luck could throw in thousands or tens of thousands of yuan without even making a splash.

In truth, Ghost Realm‘s playtime fee was the truly conscientious model. You paid for however many hours you wanted to play, and if you didn’t want to play, you could drop it anytime. You could have a great time for just a few dozen yuan, with no additional hidden costs.

Xie Yunfan truly couldn’t understand those praising the vampires as “conscientious.”

Perhaps the players in this world were too used to being harvested like leeks. With low-quality games and reskinned cash grabs running rampant, they would praise the heavens the moment they saw a slightly well-made game.

This only strengthened Xie Yunfan’s conviction to make more “truly conscientious” games!

On the night of August 14th, Qihang Games suddenly released an announcement.

“Dear players: The [Ghost Festival: Hundred Ghosts Night Parade] event will officially begin on August 18th, the 15th day of the 7th lunar month!
From August 15th to August 17th, all players who log into Ghost Realm will automatically receive the Ghost Festival Treasure Hunting quest.
During the event, the Treasure Hunting system will be updated. Every round of treasure hunting will reward massive amounts of Nether Coins, which can be used to exchange for clothing and items during the event.
The Ghost Festival is the grandest holiday in the Ghost Realm. To celebrate the annual Ghost Festival, a massive scene will be opened—the Ghost Market!

1. Random Encounter System: Adding a massive number of NPC interactive dialogues in the Ghost Market. Players can go to the Ghost Market to unlock more stories about ghosts and monsters.
2. Treasure Hunting System: Adding 10 unique Ghost Realm magical items. Players can obtain different treasure map fragments in the Ghost Market, synthesize them into treasure maps, and search for magical items lost in the Ghost Realm.
3. Challenge System: Adding 7 randomly respawning field bosses, including the Night-Crying Ghost, Thunder Ghost, Daolao Ghost, etc., awaiting everyone’s challenge.
4. Scenic Record System: Adding 10 new check-in locations in the Ghost Market, and a massive number of treasure collection quests.
5. The limited-time Ghost Market Mall opens: Nie Xiaoqian & Ning Caichen’s outfits, Qiao Sheng & Liancheng’s couple outfits, etc., different designs for the Netherworld Lamp, drift effects for the Wandering Soul state, etc. Players can freely purchase them using Nether Coins.
6. Exchange System Unlocked: Players who are too lazy to do quests can enter the dreams of their relatives, having them burn joss paper to exchange for Nether Coins.
7. Top-up Discounts During the Event: Top up 10 hours of playtime and receive an extra 5 hours for free.
   Players who log into the game on the day of the Ghost Festival will all receive a set of [Ghost Festival Limited Edition Clothing] for free!

The Ghost Market opens wide; a hundred ghosts parade in the night.
The grandest holiday of the Ghost Realm awaits your arrival!”

As soon as this announcement was released, players were instantly thrilled.

“A Ghost Festival event? Awesome!”
“I just finished beating the 10 bosses recently, and they added new field bosses this fast. I’ll definitely go fight them.”
“A bustling Ghost Market, sounds so interesting!”
“Nie Xiaoqian’s outfit, drooling, I want to buy it too.”
“Appearing in dreams to burn joss paper—does that mean we can P2W? I’m too lazy to go treasure hunting round after round, I’ll just top up! I want to buy all the clothes!”
“Today Vampire 2 launched, and you guys immediately follow up with an event preview. Badass, is this a direct face-off?”
“I tried out Vampire next door; it’s boring, just a reskin compared to the first game. Ghost Realm is still more fun!”
“What does the Ghost Market actually look like? So excited I could die!”
“A single-player game actually has events. This after-sales service maxes out my favorable impression!”

Within half an hour, the massive “organic army” of fans pushed the #GhostRealmGhostFestival topic into the trending discussions.

Amidst the bombardment of topics like #VampireLegend2LaunchesToday# and #Vampire2IsSoFun#, the solitary #GhostRealmGhostFestivalEventBegins# sandwiched in between looked entirely out of place.

**

Cool Play Headquarters.

Seeing the announcement, Duan Yuanxiu’s expression turned somewhat ugly: “They officially announce an event on the day of our launch, is this an attempt at a head-on fight?”

Qihang Games actually dares to clash head-on with Cool Play… If this were in the past, no one would have believed such a situation.

But today, Qihang indeed had the backing and confidence to face their peers’ onslaught. The gameplay for their Ghost Festival event genuinely looked very rich!

The Marketing Manager said worriedly, “I think Luo Hang prepared for this in advance. With so much event content, it’s impossible to finish in a day or two. Maybe even before Ghost Realm launched, they were already planning this event.”
“Their goal is very clear: to counterbalance the hype of our new game’s launch, consolidate their players, and snatch away Cool Play’s market!”

Duan Yuanxiu: “…”

He truly underestimated Luo Hang.

Cool Play hadn’t paid much attention to this summer vacation schedule clash at first, but Luo Hang had actually come fully prepared!

And he was clearly targeting them.

Duan Yuanxiu asked, “Can we run some events to attract players?”

The Marketing Manager said awkwardly, “But our model is a free game with paid items… Should we also give away some cosmetics?”

Duan Yuanxiu said with a headache, “It’s too late to make cosmetics now. How about this: give away a wave of gear in the game. Give a full set of level 30 gear away for free, call it a launch welfare benefit, and attract those players over for me!”

Cool Play quickly promoted an event giving away free gear as well.

The summer vacation war had officially begun.

Cool Play and Qihang were fighting fiercely. Watching the battle from the sidelines, Wings of Dream actually felt a bit lonely.

Ye Teng gritted his teeth in hatred.

If he had known this would happen, he should have agreed to Xie Yunfan’s conditions back then!

If he had agreed, Ghost Realm would be Wings of Dream’s game. This pouring revenue was truly envy-inducing.

Over the past half-month, Qihang had definitely recouped their development costs. The upcoming Hundred Ghosts Night Parade event would be pure profit!

Who knows how much money they would make…

Ye Teng was filled with endless regret, secretly pondering in his heart that for Yangfan Studio’s next game, he absolutely had to jump ahead and adapt the holographic version, or directly collaborate on it.

No matter how outrageous Xie Yunfan’s conditions were, he would agree to them!

…

At this time, Xie Yunfan and Luo Hang were eating hot pot together.

Their peers were practically flipping the sky upside down, while the two of them looked perfectly calm.

The Ghost Festival event had been planned long ago, and everything was proceeding according to their expectations.

Luo Hang smiled and said, “With us announcing it like this, Cool Play will definitely run events to snatch players back. However, I have a lot of confidence in the quality of Ghost Realm.”

Xie Yunfan said, “Don’t worry. Once the Ghost Market opens, it will drive a massive wave of revenue and attract new players as well.”

The gameplay content for this event was actually far richer than what was published in the announcement. He believed that after players explored the Ghost Market, they would definitely receive even more surprises!