Chapter 35: You're Making President Chen Feel Very Guilty!

You Were Told to Lose Money By Making Games, and You Actually Did It? 

Chapter 35: You're Making President Chen Feel Very Guilty!

There really wasn't much to do during the Spring Festival holiday.

Mostly just eating and visiting relatives.

At the same time, to avoid raising suspicions, Chen Xu hadn't brought back the high-end laptop he had bought using the system's funds.

There was a computer at home, but its hardware was already outdated. It would lag even while watching livestreams.

As for other forms of entertainment, he was in a small third-tier county town, so there simply wasn't much to do.

At most, he could go watch a movie or visit an internet café.

But going to the cinema alone felt a little lonely.

As for internet cafés, most of the local ones allowed smoking.

He had no interest in breathing secondhand smoke.

"Maybe I should just go to the company. The boss personally working during the holidays—that should at least earn me some good food to improve my digestion."

Chen Xu made what he considered a "difficult" decision.

. . .

The offices of Morning Star Games should have been completely empty.

Instead, Yamagami Eiji and Aonuma Shinji, who had officially joined the company, were busy carrying out intense optimization work on the game.

This was their first assignment after joining:

Optimizing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

‘This company is truly special!’

Aonuma couldn't help but marvel.

Excellent office facilities.

A healthy work environment.

Outstanding employee benefits.

Those things alone were already hard to imagine.

But what surprised him even more was the spirit of his coworkers.

Japan also celebrated the Chinese Spring Festival to some extent, so Aonuma understood how important a holiday like this was.

Yet only two days after New Year's Eve, despite the company having officially granted a full week of vacation, most employees had voluntarily returned to work.

Only those who lived far away or genuinely had family matters to attend to were absent.

In particular, Gong Qi and Ying Gao had returned to the office on the third day of the holiday.

What shocked Aonuma the most was everyone's attitude.

Back at Hyakukin Studio, plenty of people worked overtime as well.

But that overtime was forced.

If you didn't stay late, you couldn't finish your assigned workload.

Or perhaps you wouldn't become a full-time employee or receive a promotion.

It was a form of toxic competition—a painful kind of overtime.

But at Morning Star Games, everyone seemed just as cheerful during overtime as they did during regular working hours.

Some even had smiles on their faces.

Were they simply happy because of the triple overtime pay?

Aonuma didn't think so.

They were probably happy because they could make the game better and help the company grow.

There was no scheming between superiors and subordinates.

No workplace bullying.

Even the boss was filled with compassion and humanity.

What a pure company this was.

. . .

On the second day of the New Year, Chen Xu said goodbye to his parents and headed back to the company.

His parents knew he had a game studio over there, so they didn't try to stop him.

Before he left, however, they reminded him to take care of his health and not stay up too late.

Listening to their concern, Chen Xu nodded seriously.

Stay up late?

Impossible.

He slept until he woke up naturally every day.

Going to work was practically a form of enjoyment.

Life couldn't be more comfortable.

The only downside was that all his current benefits were essentially funded by exploiting the system.

But that wasn't a big problem.

Once the first settlement cycle arrived, he would have a private fund that he could truly use freely.

Filled with pleasant expectations, Chen Xu arrived at the company.

But the scene that greeted him the moment he entered left him stunned.

"What's going on? Didn't I give everyone a holiday? Why are you all back at work so early?"

Chen Xu looked at Gong Qi and Ying Gao in confusion.

Not only were Xiao Dao and Xiu Fu present, but roughly eighty percent of the ordinary employees were sitting at their desks as well.

"President Chen, our task is both urgent and demanding. Every day is precious," Gong Qi stepped forward and answered.

Urgent and demanding?

Wasn't the plan simply to wait for AQ's testing feedback and then fix any bugs they reported?

Could it be that the game had turned out badly and was filled with bugs?

That shouldn't be possible.

He had spent so much money on it!

And from what he'd seen before, everything looked pretty good.

"Are there a lot of bugs? Serious ones?" Chen Xu asked with a frown.

"Uh... aside from some texture and graphical issues, there aren't many critical bugs at the moment," Ying Gao replied.

"Then why are you all here working overtime so early?" Chen Xu asked, utterly baffled.

The game was already finished, and there weren't even that many bugs left.

So why were they all here working overtime?

Sure, Chen Xu was quite happy about the extra expense from paying triple overtime wages.

But wasn't this a little too dedicated?

Everyone had rushed back to work right after New Year's Eve, working hard and giving it their all.

Meanwhile, he had come here mainly to game the system.

It made him feel strangely guilty.

"President Chen, we're currently optimizing the game. We're trying to get several-year-old mainstream graphics cards to maintain a stable 60 FPS at 1080p resolution," Gong Qi explained.

Optimization?

And specifically optimizing it so that older mainstream GPUs could hold a steady 60 FPS at 1080p?

As a former gamer, Chen Xu knew exactly how important optimization was to players—especially PC players.

But they were secretly working on something this significant?

"How's the progress?" Chen Xu asked, pretending to remain calm.

"We've hit a bit of a bottleneck. Modern mid-range GPUs from the last couple of years aren't a problem, but according to Steam's hardware statistics, the older 60-series mainstream cards still make up a huge portion of the player base."

"With hardware at that level, the game can only reach 60 FPS in some relatively simple scenes, and even then it's unstable. Frame generation times fluctuate quite a bit as well. In more complex environments, we can't even maintain 40 FPS consistently," Ying Gao reported the progress somewhat awkwardly.

Back then, they had been full of confidence.

They had even dreamed of optimizing the game so that, with frame-generation technology, it could reach 120 FPS at 1080p and maintain 60 FPS at 2K resolution.

Reality, however, had dealt them a heavy blow.

Upon hearing this, Chen Xu secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

That scared me for a second.

So it was a false alarm after all.

Good. Very good.

Originally, he had been worried that they might actually achieve some miraculous optimization breakthrough.

If that happened, what would he do?

If he allowed them to continue, it might affect his future settlement rewards.

But if he stopped them, that would go against his principles.

After all, he wasn't trying to make the game bad. Optimization was unquestionably a good thing for the game.

Now everything was perfect.

Their progress had stalled.

That meant he didn't have to struggle with the dilemma anymore.

Relieved, Chen Xu began serving up another bowl of motivational wisdom.

"Your intentions are good, but sometimes not every problem can be solved simply by working overtime and optimizing harder."

"Optimization is something we should do, and we should do it properly. But that doesn't mean working endless overtime."

"Sometimes, even if we push things to the absolute limit, the results still won't be ideal. Hardware has its limits. We can't exactly break those limits, can we?"

"So as long as we do our jobs well and can honestly tell players that the game we're selling is worth its price, that's enough."

"And work is work, while life is life. Even though overtime during the holiday comes with extra pay, I'd rather everyone spend their vacation with their families instead of falling into an overtime hell."

"I won't shortchange anyone when it comes to benefits and compensation. But I also don't want anyone sacrificing their health for work."

"So starting today, continue trying to optimize Sekiro, but no more excessive overtime."

"I'll speak with property management. From now on, nobody is allowed to stay in the office past 10 p.m. Anyone who does will have their pay docked!"

Chen Xu made the decision on the spot.

Coming back to work just two days after New Year's Eve was simply too much.

Voluntary?

Didn't matter.

Even voluntary overtime wasn't allowed.

Everyone was working so hard while he spent his days loafing around.

Wasn't that just making him feel guilty?

And once guilt set in, how was he supposed to enjoy slacking off in peace?

"Alright, that's settled. We're leaving early today. Let's all go have hot pot together—my treat!"

Looking at the employees, who had lowered their heads as though they were deeply reflecting on his words, Chen Xu nodded in satisfaction.

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