“And the fourth?”
“Well, nobody has actually done the fourth one yet,” Jason replied. “But it is the Mount Everest of merchant income options. A level sixty merchant can win a franchise from the Crown in one of the eight ‘nations’ and open an auction house. The player gets a cut of everything the auction house makes, but they have to guard it well because it can be taken over by other players if they defeat the merchant’s guards.”
“One guild has announced they plan to build an auction house into a ship and take their customers a mile offshore so if they blow up the auction house, they sink with it,” Rich added.
“And these are the four best ways to earn money in the real world from playing KNC? There isn’t one for going after Wyland’s car?”
“At this point, the risk vs. rewards calculus for getting to level 75 to win a Sovereign 7GL isn’t favorable. Not with the Level Niners out there.”
“Tell me about that,” Joe asked. “Why are all the high level players being targeted?”
“My theory is it is all simple sabotage,” Rich said. “The higher your level, the more options you have. I don’t think it’s about the car. I think it’s about getting and holding territory so players can exploit it to make money. The Ashelrian Casino was one of the best examples. If the guy who set it up had made provision for protecting it, he would still be making money and be a lot closer to a world-first max-level.”
“The Level Niners just took that model and made it mobile,” Jason added.
“Plus they get to loot the players they kill, which can be a quick way to pile up wealth, at least until you find yourself weighted down and unable to escape when the next thief happens along. There’s certain to be a backlash too. As dangerous as the Niners are, they aren’t invincible by any stretch. They also have a class balance problem.”
“Even so, that doesn’t sound appealing,” Joe said. “What’s it going to take to get you back into the race for the Fairly Unusual shares? All this other stuff sounds interesting, but that’s where the real payoff is.”
“We need a hundred thousand dollars,” Rich replied without even waiting a beat. “We need a treasure station and enough to hire three other players to round out a party. We’ll put every last dollar we earn right back into getting ahead of the leveling curve. If we survive the Niners, we’ll be in a position to block the No-Name-Games team when they make their move to claim the shares.”
“And what’s your strategy?”
“Normally, I’d say we could make the most if we hired a bounty team and went after every unique treasure and quest reward we can find, but that won’t scale the way we want it to, so we’re going to flip it around and become the bounty team,” Jason said.
“We’ll get the characters leveled, then we’ll hire players to operate them around the clock, hiring ourselves out as the premiere bounty team. We’ll take a cut of everything we find and be able to leverage our continuous in-game presence to out-earn the other teams,” Rich added.
“Won’t your hired players just steal all your shit?”
“Not if their income is tied up in the characters,” Rich replied.
“And we use in-game security options to freeze our inventory,” Jason said. “Every security option in Kings and Conquests has a separate password combination. Once inventory is frozen, your player can only buy or sell food, water and transportation until you unlock it again.”
“Clever. So how can I be sure I’m going to see my money again?”
“We have a Lishian Warknife ready to manufacture. Current appraisal on Orbit’s Gamer is about $6,000, so we’re already six percent funded. Think of it as a good faith gesture.”
“Get ten for it and I’m in.”
Rich shook his head. “We can’t do premium asks on items like this. Warknives aren’t unique. The higher-level gear will earn better.”
Joe took a drink of his Orinoco Stout and glanced at his phone before re-activating it. “Alright. I want updates from you two every 48 hours. I’m going to stake you in $20,000 installments, and I want half of it earned back before we move to the next installment. Fuck up once, and you’re cut off. Understand?”
Jason and Rich nodded.
“Dead player characters are considered grade ‘A’ fuck-ups. Don’t let it happen again.” Joe stood and finished his beer. “I’ll have the money wired to you this afternoon.”
Chapter Four
Jordan Hall sat alone in the Fairly Unusual Games Malibu headquarters executive conference. He had been served coffee in a rather impressive black cylindrical cup with the Kings and Conquests logo emblazoned in full color on both sides. In the center of the dark wood table was a water pitcher and glasses on a silver-colored tray. At the far end of the room was a television displaying a static KNC logo to match the cup.
Outside the room’s glass walls, Jordan could see the bustle of activity among the company’s employees. Running a game for millions of players was no trivial task, and by the looks of things, FUG had reinforced itself with many dozens of new hires.
Before he left the Beachcomber in the limousine that had been sent for him, he had quietly instructed his team to complete their tasks so they could meet the Alyssa’s Hope at Yarshire. Robb was tasked with controlling Highwayman, keeping him logged in and keeping him parked on the ingots and their golden container.
Confident they would all do their jobs well, he had convinced himself to give Brace Coogan a chance. Granted, he wasn’t going to be able to stay awake long enough to do anything else today, but the possibilities of learning something useful from the very people who designed the game he was trying to beat were too valuable to pass up.
The door opened, and Fairly Unusual CEO Brace Coogan entered. He closed the door behind him and placed a leather folio on the table. He pulled out one of the roller-equipped leather chairs and sat at the opposite end. He was dressed in a striking dark blue suit with a red tie. His short gray hair made him look squared-away in a Marine sergeant sort of way.
“How do you like the new headquarters?”
Jordan nodded, suddenly conscious of his “slacker” posture. He sat up in his chair, mindful of the fact he was addressing the CEO of a somewhat prestigious game company.
“I purposely left the lawyers out of this,” Coogan continued. “I want to get right to the point. We want you to win Wyland’s quest, but we can’t help you in-game. Tampering with a contest like this could set us up for a lot of thorny legal issues.”
“How did you find us?”
“Alyssa’s mobile app.”
“Figures,” Jordan sighed. “Why bring me all the way to Malibu? This is time I could be spending working on my quests.”
“I want to buy back some of your shares.” Coogan said flatly.
“They aren’t mine yet.”
“Well, for all intents and purposes we consider the current situation, at least from a legal standpoint, to be as if you’ve made a tender offer. Now we have the option of responding to the offer. Think of it as a small dose of greenmail.”
“How small?”
“Our stock closed last Friday at $78.50 a share. You’ve made an offer to acquire a little over ten million shares. I’ll buy an option to re-acquire 100,000 of them back from you, or one percent of your position in cash at Friday’s closing price.”
“Why not today’s closing price?”
“Because I want the profits,” Coogan replied. “And because you need the money. All your hardware was stolen. You have no place to go, and you need transportation to someplace safe where you can finish your quests.”
Jordan realized how fortunate he was to have such sudden leverage. “I’ll give you your profits, Mr. Coogan, but I want a few answers to some nagging questions first.”
“Shoot.”
“Is there really a deal between FUG and Wyland?”
“Yes. Several, in fact. FU Unlimited owns the game engine, characters, story, trademark and roughly 200 patents on our augmented reality inte
rface, digital communications software, radio antenna control technology, 3D manufacturing and materials science technologies and both a patent and a copyright on our data-annotated map of the world. We pay a fee to renew our licenses every 90 days.”
“And if you don’t pay?”
“We go out of business. Wyland and FU Unlimited were both creditors in the bankruptcy case. He got a declaratory judgment as part of the consent decree we signed to emerge from Chapter 11. If we fail to pay our fees, he can file a motion and be automatically granted a federal injunction from the Eastern District of New York in about two hours. He has his own law firm on a separate retainer with the complaint already drafted. He’s paying three lawyers. All they do is change the date on the paperwork every couple of days and wait for a green light to file.”
“That sonofabitch. We thought the bankruptcy was a PR stunt.”
“It was. It was also his ace in the hole. He took a big risk building this game, Mr. Hall. He didn’t like it when the entire industry and 80% of his player base tried to fuck up his life. So he built the video game equivalent of a poison pill and left it behind when he quit. I say good for him, because I saw what those little fuckers tried to do to the man.”
“What are you talking about? I thought he was just tired of being a developer.”
“We did a soft launch four years ago called ‘Knights of the Land.’ It was only a portion of what KNC ended up becoming, but it was a solid effort on its own. We marketed it through outside retailers. A tribe of little shitasses brigaded our reviews because they claimed they weren’t ‘happy’ with the graphics. What should have been a seven-figure launch was cut by about 70%. We came this close to closing down for good. Turns out most of the loudest bitching was coming from people who had pirated the game and were boasting to everyone but the retailer how they had scored a freebie.”
“I played that game. There was nothing wrong with the graphics!”
“We’re all caught in the same squeeze, Mr. Hall. If we overspend on graphics, the shits complain about gameplay. If we underspend and polish the gameplay, they bitch about the graphics.”
“So what do they want?”
“Free games. Better games. Then free games that are better. To put it more accurately they want us to spend $500 million making a game with 150 gigs of cinematic quality graphics plus weeks of time-tested flawless and addictive gameplay that is completely different from anything they’ve played before but also just like last year’s hit. And then they want it free. Plus they want expansions and new DLC all free too. If we fail to deliver, they brigade our reviews and post hours of complaints on Videowall because they think that will cut in to our sales.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. What the fuck. Why do you think nobody stays in this business? By the time anyone had taken a breath to start bitching about KNC, we were four weeks launched and it was too late. Then when the shitasses realized they could park it in front of their greasy keyboards day and night and earn real money, griping gave way to greed and the rest is history. Wyland insisted KNC beat the living shit out of the players likeliest to complain the most, and in that narrow mission he succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. You should see the transcripts of the in-game chat channels recorded as their shitty no-skill low-level characters were being murdered by the bushel.”
“You really enjoyed all this, didn’t you?”
“After what they did to my friend, I was gratified beyond words. They damn near broke the man. And I’ll be shit on if I’m going to tolerate someone’s life being destroyed over a bunch of pixels on a screen.”
“And now you want to pay me seven million dollars for stock I don’t even own yet?”
“It won’t be the first offer you get, Mr. Hall. Did you read this morning’s New York National?” Coogan pulled a folded newspaper out of his folio and slid it down the table. “Oh, I shouldn’t have asked. 20-somethings don’t read newspapers any more, do they?”
The ad was on top. It read “Did you beat the Kings and Conquests Contest? Find any shares? I’ll buy your shares at today’s close plus five percent.”
“Who is Eduardo Catalan?”
“Hedge fund guy based in Spain. He was one of our big contributors during our crowdfund. Soon as he knows who you are, he’ll be calling.”
“All due respect, Mr. Coogan, he’s offering me a $300,000 premium over your offer.”
“The difference is he won’t pay you until you can hand him the shares. I’m buying an option. I’m taking a risk you won’t fuck this up before you redeem.”
“The city of Rook is a disaster area.”
“Be that as it may, I can’t help you with the in-game situation. You’ll just have to figure that out on your own. You’re also going to need to maintain a low profile, as I’m sure there are less-than-reputable factions in-game and out who would rather have the prize for themselves, and they aren’t likely to follow the rules. I suggest you find a way to split your group up.”
“What about Wyland?”
“If you could find him, and you can’t, he would tell you the same thing. He doesn’t give a shit about video games any more, which I consider to be one of the biggest tragedies in all of this. The man is as talented as they come, and the industry lost a giant when he hung it up.”
“That sucks.”
“Agreed.”
“So what do we do here? I’m running on four hours sleep, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a little slow.”
Coogan punched several buttons on the conference table phone. “Sydney, would you come to the Executive Conference for a moment?”
“Yes sir,” came the crisp reply.
“Our general counsel drew up a simple option agreement.”
Sydney entered and carried the letter and a leather folio from one end of the conference table to the other.
“It’s one page with minimal legalese. It basically says you agree to sell 100,000 shares of our common stock at a strike price of $78.50 a share within 30 days of acquiring more than 1% of our total outstanding shares.”
Jordan scanned the document. The entire surface of the paper was covered in a full-page Kings and Conquests logo which was not only printed lightly enough to allow the words of the letter to be readable, it was also reverse-embossed so it felt like the logo was a solid object pressed into the paper. A black credit card fell out of the folio. It too was embossed with the name “Jordan Hall.” Inside the folio was a brand new Heterodyne mobile phone.
“All the numbers are there. Our holding company wired approximately $7.8 million to an interest bearing money market account in your name held at Broadway Investment Bank this morning. The black Partner’s Club card draws directly on your account with a $100,000 daily maximum. It is also registered with a $1,000,000 credit limit in case you need to make a qualified purchase. You can obtain additional cards if you need them and set your own limits on them.”
“What’s the phone for?”
“There’s a single phone number stored in the call app’s address book. That phone is also registered with the UID 500 developer account and the KNC augmented reality app is pre-installed. If you encounter a problem you can’t run away from, call that number. The phone will automatically transmit your location to the other phone. Help will arrive soon thereafter.”
“Kings and Conquests 911?”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Coogan’s expression became earnest and sober. His voice took on an ominous tone. “Jordan, it’s only a matter of time before players start unlocking some of the advanced treasure, crafting options and player housing beyond level 20. So far you’ve only seen a fraction of what’s in this game.”
“Why are you throwing money at me like this, Mr. Coogan?”
“There are a lot of rich assholes in the world. Right now, they are all making plans to take your quest reward. Personally, I’d rather that not happen. This is the only legal way I can help you. Also, you and your buddies need to get the hell out of that resort an
d get somewhere else double-quick. You can start by splitting up.”
“Why? We’re off the radar.”
“You had a treasure station delivered to a mail drop only a mile from your rooms. Jordan, we’re not fucking around here, and neither are your adversaries. Eventually everyone will know where you are. You need to be out of there and on the road at your first opportunity. The last thing we need is for the media to catch up to you. Replace your equipment. Get mobile and get the fuck out of that bamboo cage.”
Jordan hesitated for a moment, then remembered the information he needed most. “Are Fairly Unusual employees involved in rigging KNC to get an unfair advantage for themselves?”
“Officially, no. Unofficially and off the record, the whole fucking world is trying to rig this game to get an unfair advantage. Right now, as of today, at this moment, you are in the lead. If I were you, I’d do whatever is necessary to keep it that way. How about a quick tour?” Brace stood. “We’re safe here in the building. You can leave your items there and pick them up on the way out. The car will take you back to the Beachcomber. Within the next 48 hours we’ll provide you with some more effective transportation options.”
“What do you mean?” Now Jordan was both concerned and curious.
“You’ll be notified in your augmented reality app. Think of it as an incentive to go with the option. Come on.”
Jordan was led out into the hall and escorted alongside the executive conference towards one of the large bays of open work areas for Fairly Unusual employees. The first area had a circular arrangement of desks. Each was equipped with a massive 40" LCD display, an artist’s digital tablet and a PC keyboard. Some had mice, others had trackballs.
What made the room most interesting was at its center. A huge column of digital displays dissolved from one work-in-progress to another. Some were sketches. Others were partially or fully colored art. Others were rigged 3D meshes. The displays at the center were all suspended from four to eight feet off the floor. After a few moments, Jordan realized the center displays were showing the other artists what each person was working on at their station.
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