Free Web NovelChapter 223: Chapter 195: Inventions Always Happen Inadvertently, Part 3
"I want a game that many people can play together."
"But isn’t auto chess a game a lot of people can play together?"
"It’s not the same. Auto chess feels exhausting, and... and..." He struggled to find the right word.
"Stressful? Too competitive?"
"Yeah, that’s it. I want a really fun game, one where everyone can play on the same machine at once. That way, no one’s playtime is too short," he tried his best to describe.
"Oh, a party game."
"A party? Maybe."
Game genres hadn’t been formally classified yet, so naturally, the term "party game" didn’t exist.
Nor would you see a bunch of people arguing back and forth over a game, just to prove whether it was an action game, an action role-playing game, or an action-adventure game.
Zog realized he’d been completely overlooking party games.
It seemed like the perfect kind of genre to promote and popularize in this world.
Getting together whenever they had free time, throwing parties, and then finding all sorts of ways to have fun on the spot by playing quirky little mini-games was a very popular part of the local culture.
Perhaps it was because Zog, whether as a human or as a Dragon, had no interest in party culture. He was even a bit of a loner and couldn’t for the life of him understand what was so fun about it.
He didn’t much care for playing games with other people, either.
But as a business-minded Dragon, he didn’t need to understand *why* people liked something, only *that* they did.
The kid’s comment, however, had jogged his memory.
Maybe it was time to create a local co-op game.
But how would people play it in the game store? Wait for enough people in line to gather for a round?
’That would be too weird.’
Before he knew it, the number of fish in Zog’s keepnet was about to catch up to the kid’s haul.
"Actually, what I want most is a game console that can play all sorts of games," the kid added. "You just buy the game you want to play, not a whole new machine for it. That way, I might even be able to afford lots of games."
’I want that too,’ Zog thought.
He had wanted to make a game console for a long time, but hadn’t managed to do it.
"That might be difficult," Zog explained as simply as he could. "Even if we stored games in Magic Crystal Stones to sell individually, you couldn’t activate them on the same game machine because the Magic formats are different for each game."
"Then why not sell the way to activate them?" the kid retorted.
"What?" Zog couldn’t quite follow his logic.
"The games could be stored on the machine for free, but you’d have to buy the means of activation separately. You could still make money."
"But how would that..." Zog started to object, but then he thought about it. Suddenly, he realized it might actually work.
He had been too fixated on replicating the game consoles from his memory—putting games on cartridges and selling them. His design proposals all reflected this, which was why R&D had stalled.
’I shouldn’t be so reliant on my old experiences.’
Let the console download the games, and the "cartridge" for sale would just be an item to run them. That would be cheaper than building a dedicated machine for each game, and most players could afford it.
’Worth a shot.’
"What’s your name?"
"Stephen, sir."
’What a classic kid’s name.’
It was a strange phenomenon among males: they could chat for half the day without ever learning each other’s names.
Zog tossed the membership card to Stephen. "It’s yours now."
"But the hour isn’t up yet, sir." Stephen was a good kid who didn’t like taking what wasn’t his.
"Oh, is that right? Well then, I’ll just fish a little longer," Zog said, suddenly yanking on his rod as if he’d hooked a leviathan.
After a brief struggle, there was a sharp SNAP!
Zog’s fishing line had snapped, the break right near his claws.
"Well, can’t keep fishing now. What a shame. I totally would have won, but I guess you win."
Stephen finally accepted the membership card, beaming.
"Sir, I have one more question," Stephen asked, having been curious for a while. "How did you suddenly start catching all those fish?"
"Ha, a secret," Zog said mysteriously.
Meanwhile, beneath the waves, a Fishman quietly swam off into the distance, a few leftover fish still in the basket on his back.
He didn’t understand why the envoy of the Mother of the Sea had ordered him to hook a fish onto a little hook every few moments. ’There must be some profound meaning behind it...’
