Sunday night, Xie Yunfan suddenly received a private message. The sender’s ID was “Black Bird”.

Xie Yunfan recalled for a moment in his mind and quickly remembered this person—

An Uploader on Station A. Back when promoting Underworld Maze, he had asked the other party to help edit some videos, and thus, they had added each other as friends.

Because the “Compilation of Game Streamers’ Ways to Die” video had gone massively viral and broken out of the gaming circle, Black Bird had also reaped a wave of dividends, gaining many followers. Currently, Black Bird ranked in the top ten in popularity among Uploaders in Station A’s gaming section.

Black Bird said: “Boss, may I trouble you to ask, can I edit the plot animations of Journey to the West separately and publish them on Station A?”

As the largest video editing website in the country, Station A had an endless stream of edited videos covering various TV shows, movies, anime, and games, with everything from recommendation videos to roasting videos. There was also a large group of players who liked watching edits and reviews to decide whether or not to play a game.

Xie Yunfan replied: “The first chapter is free, so the plot animations can be edited separately into a compilation. But starting from the second chapter, it will be paid, so the animations cannot be leaked oh. Hope you understand.”

Black Bird hurriedly expressed: “Understood! Then I’ll edit the free content first. After the second chapter launches, I’ll make some gameplay edits to recommend it.”

Xie Yunfan said: “No problem, thanks for the promotion~”

Black Bird complained: “Boss, you’re too polite! I honestly couldn’t fall asleep after finishing the game and wanted to find something to do. Stopping the plot at this point is too frustrating ah! My Great Sage, just got pinned down like that?”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

This Uploader had also played the game, couldn’t sleep after finishing the first chapter, and so wanted to edit the animations separately. A large number of casual users on Station A who liked watching edits might also be attracted by the plot and thus run off to download the game.

After obtaining the boss’s permission, Black Bird immediately brought out his screen recording tool. He clicked into the “Journey for Scriptures” plot replay interface in the game and recorded all the plots from levels 1 to 7.

When playing the game, he hadn’t carefully calculated the time. Now, editing the plot separately, he realized that the animations of the first chapter actually added up to two hours.

This length of time could rival an animated movie, right?

So much content, and available for free download—the boss was truly conscientious. It was just that the plot stopping there was too maddening; he wished he could personally go and urge for updates to quickly watch the next chapter.

Black Bird recombined the animation plots according to the levels and ultimately edited them into 7 episodes, publishing them on his homepage with the title: Journey to the West Chapter One Animation Compilation.

Because he included the tags #Game# and #Anime# when publishing, this video edit also appeared in Station A’s “Anime” section.

Station A itself was one of the large-scale websites for serialized anime, and there were very many users here who liked following anime series. A new video appearing in the “Anime” dedicated section quickly attracted a large number of users who loved watching anime.

Seven episodes? Is this some new anime?

Many casual users raised their doubts one after another.

[Which studio made this anime? The production looks very exquisite.]
[Where is it serialized? It’s actually quite good.]
[The protagonist is a monkey? Haha, the art style is out of the ordinary.]
[The anime is called Journey to the West? I couldn’t find it on any major video websites ah!]

The anime section viewers who poured into the video watched episode after episode with puzzled moods. The more they watched, the more captivating it became—this monkey protagonist was too awesome, watching him was so exhilarating!

Meanwhile, the viewers from the gaming section were complaining in the comments section one after another.

[Just finished the seventh level, came to Station A to browse for some happiness, and ended up getting stabbed in the heart again, woo woo woo.]
[The dog planner is truly inhuman, getting stuck at this point.]
[That bunch of idiots from the Heaven Realm only know how to bully my Monkey Brother!]

Seeing more and more comments, Black Bird immediately posted a pinned announcement.

“This is the animation edit of the first chapter of the mobile game Journey to the West, published with the authorization of Yangfan Studio. The game can be downloaded for free on Mobile Games Home or Yangfan Studio’s official website. Those interested can download and play it oh!”

Seeing the Uploader’s announcement, the casual viewers who clicked in from the anime section to “follow the show” finally understood—so this was an animation from a game.

[Game animation? The characters are very exquisite, looks like they smashed a lot of money into it!]
[Making animation with their hearts, making games with their feet?]
[Randomly grabbing someone who has played to ask, is this game fun?]
[Casual player here to state, it’s super fun! The level designs are very interesting.]
[Watching the animation looks pretty good, I’ll go test the poison, hope I don’t get scammed~]

Many people who normally didn’t play games were attracted by the animation. Finding the production quite exquisite, they curiously ran off to download the game.

As for people who already loved playing games, some who didn’t browse Weibo hadn’t seen the hot searches and entirely didn’t know Yangfan Studio had released a new game. Now seeing the Uploader’s recommendation, they also hurriedly ran off to download it.

7 episodes of animation, each episode around 20 minutes.

Because it was edited out of a game, there was no opening theme, no ending theme, and no “previously on…” recaps. Just 20 minutes of pure plot without any water injected at all. Watching it felt extremely coherent and satisfying.

The time Black Bird published the animation was 11:00 PM.

By the time the people who came running to follow the updates finished watching all 7 episodes, it was already past 1:00 AM.

It’s over, can’t sleep!

How could it stop at this point ah?

[Holy crap, following an anime in the middle of the night, followed it until I got insomnia.]
[What kind of trash ending is this? Where is my immensely awesome Great Sage?]
[Suspending updates truly deserves death ah!]
[Can you immediately open up advanced fast-track episodes for the subsequent plot right now?]
[Serializing an anime inside a game, I yield.]

After the game streamers and viewers on live-streaming websites suffered from insomnia, the batch of people following anime on Station A also suffered disaster. They were collectively so angry they got insomnia, and some even specially downloaded Weibo to follow Yangfan Studio.

Ordinary serialized anime updated weekly. This was everyone’s first time following an anime inside a game, and they felt a bit panicked in their hearts, not knowing if this anime could update on time.

Many people left messages asking: “Yangfan Studio, since you dare to cliffhanger the plot in the game, can you achieve weekly updates like most anime?”
“I advise you to be sensible. Don’t be like XX and update quarterly, yearly, or even abandon it!”
“If you dare to abandon this anime, believe it or not, I’ll go to your studio and knife you?”
“If you really can’t do it, let’s crowdfund a wave and finish making the animation first!”
…

The next morning, when Xie Yunfan woke up, the topic #DogPlannerReturnMyGreatSage# was still hanging high at the top spot of the Weibo hot searches.

Station A’s users had also joined the main army of update-urgers. The comments urging for updates under the studio’s account had already reached hundreds of thousands.

The well-known Uploader Black Bird’s recommendation had drawn in a large batch of anime-following users. These people hadn’t played the game and had only watched the animation plot. Because they loved the Great Sage too much, they ran straight to Weibo to urge for the follow-up.

The higher-ups at game companies like Wings of Dream and Cool Play were all bewildered.

At first, seeing this topic, they thought players were scolding Yangfan Studio. Excitedly, they had prepared to go up and add fuel to the fire, and conveniently have the media draft some negative press releases.

As a result, upon clicking into the topic to look… why was it all people urging for updates?

Countless players were there urging for the follow-up. Not a single one said “the game isn’t fun”; instead, they were all praising the exquisite animation production and anticipating the subsequent plot.

This direction wasn’t looking good ah! A game’s plot was actually this attractive? Don’t the vast majority of players use “one-click skip” for in-game plots?

Urging for plots all the way onto the hot searches—Xie Yunfan, are you making a game or making an anime?

The peers in the industry couldn’t understand this bizarre trend at all.

This game directly left the competitor companies with nowhere to even apply their negative smear campaigns.

At the same time, at the Mobile Games Home website headquarters.

The Director of the Data Department came to Qin Fang’s office and reported: “President Qin, the game Journey to the West that you asked me to keep an eye on has shown an exponential growth trend in homepage visits from its launch at noon on Saturday until now.”

Exponential growth? Holy crap, this game is going to blow up!

Qin Fang was very surprised looking at the data. An “air-dropped game” with absolutely no pre-heating actually had its data explode within two short days? Peers would definitely be very confused upon hearing this news.

For the vast majority of games, early-stage promotional fees cost millions or even tens of millions. Xie Yunfan was quite something—zero promotion, directly parachuting, and the effects were so heaven-defying. Didn’t this make people jealous and green-eyed?

Qin Fang was very glad he had the foresight to agree to Xie Yunfan’s 5% revenue share demand. As long as this game blew up, he could just lie back and make money later on.

Qin Fang decisively made a decision: “Put the installation package for Journey to the West on our newest servers, increase the bandwidth, and double the download speed for me.”

…

Monday morning, during the recess exercise period.

When elementary and middle school students returned to school for classes, they would discuss what they did over the weekend. For example, were there any good movies recently, or any fun games?

This Monday, the discussion topics in almost all schools revolved around the “Great Sage Equal to Heaven”.

“I played Journey to the West for two days over the weekend, just cleared Simple Mode.”
“I also played this game, I even played it together with my dad.”
“The Great Sage is so formidable, it’s a pity he got scammed by the Heaven Realm.”
“I also really love the Great Sage. The Great Sage is the most handsome protagonist I’ve ever seen!”

Seeing their classmates discussing so fervently, those who hadn’t played the game couldn’t join the conversation at all and felt they were falling behind the trend. Thus, after the students returned home, they immediately begged their parents to download this game for them.

On Monday night, the game’s download volume experienced another wave of skyrocketing.

The manager of Mobile Games Home’s Data Department hurriedly called Qin Fang: “President Qin, Journey to the West‘s download volume on Monday is actually higher than on Sunday. I’ve never seen this kind of data trend!”

For the vast majority of games, the weekend ushered in the peak period, and the data naturally slipped on Monday. This Journey to the West was too bizarre. How could the download volume on Monday be higher than on the weekend?

The Data Department Director’s voice was excited: “Our single-platform download volume has already broken 8 million. Adding the data from Yangfan Studio’s official website, it should have broken ten million.”

Breaking ten million in three days… this was simply the trend of a massive blockbuster hit!

Qin Fang analyzed: “It might be that after school started, it fermented and spread among the student demographic? Coupled with the high-ranking hot search that lasted a long time last night, it also attracted many casual players.”

The student demographic was very prone to the “clustering effect”.

In a class of dozens of students, if a few played Journey to the West over the weekend and the rest didn’t, the ones who hadn’t played would hear the fervent discussions of their classmates upon returning to school, and out of curiosity, would also go home and download it.

This kind of “organic word-of-mouth promotion effect” was more useful than any advertisement.

Mobile Games Home previously also had some games suitable for students, like Tower of Dream and Pet Paradise, but had never seen data growth this terrifying.

After thinking carefully, Qin Fang reached a conclusion: “Xie Yunfan stuck the plot way too ingeniously!”

Launching on Saturday, the vast majority of players would reach the seventh level over the two days.

The gameplay of the first seven levels was rich and interesting, and the plot was vivid and wonderful. From the information Qin Fang grasped, the end of the seventh level happened to get stuck right at the critical moment when the protagonist, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, was pinned beneath the Five Elements Mountain.

This… how could players just put it down!

Going to school or work the next day, of course they had to recommend it to their classmates and colleagues.

The effect of one person’s recommendation wasn’t conspicuous. But what if all the players recommended it to the people around them? That would be the most terrifying “organic word-of-mouth”.

The conscientious recommendations of people around you were more effective than buying hundreds of hot searches.

No wonder Xie Yunfan dared to boldly parachute!

This game wasn’t afraid of having no promotion—all the players were the best organic word-of-mouth promotion.

Qin Fang sighed with emotion: “This guy Xie Yunfan is simply a genius! The massive popularity of Underworld Maze back then wasn’t an accident; he really knows how to grasp players’ emotions.”

Underworld Maze relied on “torturing streamers” to break out of the circle. Players didn’t want to suffer torture alone, so they frantically recommended it to their friends around them.

Journey to the West, however, relied on the players’ love for the Great Sage and anticipation for the plot—how boring is it to follow a show by myself? Let’s all follow the show together!

As long as the players had expectation value, the subsequent chapters wouldn’t have to worry about a lack of popularity.

Qin Fang immediately sent a message to Xie Yunfan: “Little Sailboat, your new game broke ten million downloads in just three short days, and the word-of-mouth reputation is also very good. This is going to be a huge hit again ah! Can the subsequent production capacity keep up?”

He was somewhat worried. What if Yangfan Studio made games too slowly and the update suspension lasted too long, causing the players’ enthusiasm to fade? This approach of “serializing a plot inside a game” might backfire.

Xie Yunfan replied: “President Qin, rest assured, the second chapter is currently in internal beta testing. If no accidents occur, it will go online in early July.”

Gratified, Qin Fang sent a thumbs-up emoji.

As the lead planner, one definitely had to control the progress of the game well, and Xie Yunfan controlled the pacing extremely well. The first chapter had just launched, and the second chapter was already finished. It seemed he had come prepared long ago!

…

On Monday night, Yangfan Studio posted an announcement.

This announcement was also synchronized to the download pages on Mobile Games Home and the official website.

“Thank you to all players for your support of Journey to the West. The studio is currently in urgent production of the game’s second chapter, which will go online in early July. Please stay tuned ^^”

Early July? Still have to wait around ten days…

It was truly too agonizing!