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Freezing Shadows, Book 1 Epilogue
🕑 Added 2024-12-14 19:57:23 +0000 UTCEpilogue: Elsewhere
(MetaTech Virtual Headquarters, Shadowmen Control Room)
Demi Turner’s brow furrowed as she looked at the data, going back and forth from the raw numbers to the aggregated feed. This was important. Shadowmen was the biggest release for MetaTech since the initial production of the Full Immersion Virtual Reality (FIVR) pods. The amount of manhours and resources poured into this game meant that it would be a disaster if it didn’t perform well, and as Game Director for Shadowmen, that would fall on her.
“How’s it going, Demi?”
The voice broke her concentration, causing her to blink twice as she remembered where she was. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Lilia Chandler, the head of the marketing section devoted to Shadowmen. “Ah, Lilila. Well, so far, everything looks to be going all right. As you know, there’s a two-to-one time dilation in game to real life, so we’re getting results quicker than we normally would. Like we expected, there was something of a high turnover in new characters with those who were just starting. About like what we saw with the beta participants. Most people only take one or two tries to understand that they shouldn’t try and play this like your normal game.”
“Hmm. Can I convince you to do a couple interviews? Not the trad media outfits. More going on stream with one of the more popular gaming influencers. Someone who has credibility in the RPG space, more than the MMO space, I think.”
She considered that. Interviews were part of the job, obviously, but who did the interview mattered. A straight to the gamers kind of approach would probably get more attention from people actually playing the game. Plus, they tended to be grateful for you bringing clout to their channel, rather than expecting you to come to them, like some outlets did. “Talking with gamers, rather than reporters? Yeah, I’d be willing to do that, if only to put one over on those pricks.”
“You’re not still mad about what they wrote about the game when the alpha footage got leaked, are you?”
“Mad, no. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make them regret ever doing it. My momma didn’t raise me to just let shit go.”
Lilia sighed. “Well, I guess that’s as good as I’ll get. How are the numbers, besides the people running into bullets? Things going well?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Mental engagement is good, across the board. When seeding new players throughout the game world, we used random generation for location, but with beta players being slightly weighted towards areas where there was a high chance of events leading to jobs happening. This is just for the initial release. Afterwards, it will go back to fully random.”
“I think I get it, but why the weighting?”
“Because the beta players that made it through to the end have learned to recognize opportunities when they come upon them. They also have been in enough scrapes that they aren’t likely to chase those opportunities on their own. They’re going to reach out to contacts, and those contacts will reach out to other players, connecting them, and bringing them into the fold. And word should spread from there.”
“Excellent. We have any demographic information yet?”
“Because of content, we’ve restricted it to 18 and up, obviously.”
“Thank you for that, I really didn’t want to have to deal with the ‘think about the children’ crowd.”
“Hah. Yeah, so, 35% in the 18 to 29 bracket, 48% in the 30 to 49 bracket, and the final 17% in the 50-plus bracket.”
“Can I get that data split up in different brackets?”
“Talk to Cheryl, and she’ll send you reports with the breakdowns you want.” Demi looked back at the numbers. “Race breaks down pretty much in line with racial demographics of gamers as a whole, so you can say that it is something for everyone in that kind of way. Oh, there is one interesting statistic.”
“Really? What?”
“Player base is twenty-percent male.”
Lilia just stared at her. “What, really?”
Demi just grinned. “Yeah, twenty percent overall, but in the 18 to 29 bracket it is almost thirty percent.”
“Tell me there aren’t any problems brewing, like we had in the Beta. Two of the testers were thinking about suing us for enabling their harassment.”
“Actually, no. Most of the men are ‘going to ground’, in some ways. They’re joining in with in-game groups, especially the gangs and syndicates. Biggest reason can basically be summed up as male bonding, and letting men be men.”
Lilia frowned. “I thought I was supposed to be the PR person spewing bullshit marketing buzzwords.”
“No, this actually comes from some of the therapists who were dealing with concerns in the beta. Of the four men who were testing, three of them said that being able to actually be in an environment where they weren’t one in ten was like taking a breath of fresh air that they didn’t know they needed. Sure, there’s some horny women out there wanting a virtual husbando, but out of all the men playing, only forty percent have actually joined a party with female players.”
“You said three of the four beta testers. What about the fourth?”
“Ah, he was one of the ones doing the medical testing initiative, for long-term immersion. From what the therapists could tell me without breaching confidentiality, being able to walk was the biggest thing for him.”
“Oh. Oh! OH! No. No, I can’t use that. It might get a quick bump, but if it turned bad, and it could easily turn bad, then it would definitely wipe out any boost we got, and then some.”
Demi sighed, and materialized a virtual spray bottle, and turned it on Lilia. “No! Bad Marketer! Bad!”
“Ack! Stop it! I said I wouldn’t do it already!”
“You still immediately thought of how to use that man’s tragedy to sell more games!”
“Fine. Fine. I promise I won’t do anything like that.”
“All right, then,” Demi nodded, as she put away the spray bottle. As she did so, a notice flashed in front of her. Expanding the window, she said, “Well, that’s interesting.”
“What? Interesting good, or interesting bad?”
“Good, for the most part. One of the gigs that spawned was a rare evolution of a standard scenario. Attempted killing for hire happens in front of some shadowmen, and they either break it up, or don’t. If they do, there’s a good chance they can get a job out of it. Looks like this group managed to spin one of the rarest branches of the tree, with a high potential payout. They got one of the best outcomes, with the lowest chance of reprisals. Pretty impressive.”
“Was one of the beta players involved?”
“Actually, yes. One of the four men from the beta, the same one we were just talking about. And he is one of the few to link up with an all-female party. But then, this guy already had something of a following back in the beta.”
“What, really?”
“Yeah, he was the ‘mysterious Seattle man’, the only one of the male testers that didn’t get identified in real life. The Seattle testers were starting to make him into a bit of an urban legend, especially with some of the ones who managed to run with him. ESPECIALLY after they learned that in-game pregnancy was possible, the hard way.”
“Oh, god,” Lilia buried her face in her hands. “Tell me that there wasn’t any foolishness of people saying that getting knocked up in the game would cause you to get pregnant in real life?”
“Like a horny version of those old urban legends from the early VR systems, where if you died in the game, you died for real? Yeah, no. But they did discover that the game simulated morning sickness quite well.”
“Well, I guess that’s fine. Adds to the realism. Though we’ll want to make sure people don’t start ignoring real life to be with their virtual children.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear it from me, but a little birdie said that, since getting busy in the game causes men to get a release in real life, they managed to work it so the medical pod collects it, with his approval, naturally, and sells it through MetaTech’s SeedPlanter service.”
“I wonder if he will let us do an interview, as a testimonial, or something like that.”
“It’ll need to be in game. He’s not slated to log out for a year.”
“I can work with that.”
Comments
Solveen Dathe Rizzal
Thanks for the chapter. Noticed a misspelled name near the start. alter. '“Ah, Lilila.' TO '“Ah, Lilia.'
Some BS Deity
The spray bottle was excellent
Paigeon
Bad Marketer. Had me laughing out loud. I could so feel that one.
Robert Gardner
TFTC
