Chapter 12: Mirror's Sales

Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players 

Chapter 12: Mirror's Sales

While Ruan Ningxue and Yang Xin were talking, Chen Xu was busy keeping a close eye on Mirror's performance.

In fact, quite a few people had already begun to notice the game.

Although it had launched on the overseas version of the platform and belonged to a rather niche category, the sales figures spoke for themselves.

The official platform didn't publicly disclose sales numbers.

However, for game developers and industry media, it wasn't difficult to estimate a game's sales by analyzing various publicly available metrics.

The estimates might not be perfectly accurate, but they were usually close enough.

Although Mirror hadn't appeared on any sales rankings, it had achieved something even more remarkable.

It had climbed to No. 1 on the user ratings chart with an almost unbelievable performance.

An 18+ game had suddenly taken the top spot on the highest-rated games list.

Needless to say, many game developers were astonished.

Quite a few of them wanted to see what made this game so special, especially after reading the reviews.

Many discovered that the player comments were completely unlike those typically found under adult games.

In fact, some of them couldn't quite make sense of them.

"An outstanding match-3 game!"

"Women, get out of my way! You're interrupting my gameplay!"

"I honestly can't tell whether this is a puzzle game or a visual novel. But one thing's certain—my little brother is very satisfied."

"At first I thought this would just be another cheap adult game, but I was completely blown away. This isn't some low-effort adult title—it's genuinely a high-quality indie game!"

"As a professional nitpicker, the only criticism I can come up with is this: Why the hell did you make an adult game this moving and this polished?"

"Ten minutes have already passed. I should've entered post-nut clarity and closed the game by now. So why am I still playing? This match-3 gameplay is actually addictive!"

"In this game, I witnessed the beauty and ugliness, the good and evil of human nature. It's unlike anything else."

"When an adult game actually moves me emotionally... does it even matter whether I came here to masturbate or not?"

"I launched this game filled with excitement and anticipation. But when I left, I wasn't relieved—I just felt melancholy."

These reviews left many readers dumbfounded.

Had they opened the wrong game page?

Of course, alongside the many glowing reviews were also players who, after zipping their pants back up, suddenly became exceptionally outspoken.

Unlike the game's initial promotion—which relied on sponsored recommendation posts on overseas forums popular with adult-game enthusiasts—its momentum was now being driven almost entirely by word of mouth.

For Chen Xu, all that remained was to sit back and collect the money.

"Hmm... The first batch of funds is here."

"Next, I'll find a better place to work, then register a company."

"After that, I need to properly plan the company's future development—and earn some more system points while I'm at it."

Back in his apartment, Chen Xu lay on his bed, planning his next steps.

As for the system points, he had also noticed something.

They were increasing, but only slowly.

So far, he had accumulated just enough for two single pulls.

As Chen Xu was thinking, the phone lying beside him suddenly rang.

He picked it up and glanced at the caller ID.

It was Ruan Ningxue.

"Hello, Senior Ruan. What's up?" Chen Xu answered.

"It's nothing... I just wanted to congratulate you. Before this, I thought..."

On the other end of the line, Ruan Ningxue sounded a little embarrassed.

Chen Xu more or less guessed what she had been about to say.

Smiling, he replied, "It's okay, Senior. That's perfectly understandable. Honestly, even I was a little surprised by Mirror's sales."

That statement was half true and half false.

The false part was that Mirror's success had been entirely within Chen Xu's expectations.

The game's quality, its marketing strategy, and even the decision to make Mirror his first project had all been carefully researched and planned beforehand.

Nothing had been decided on impulse.

The true part, however, was that Mirror's popularity had indeed exceeded his expectations.

Although it had launched on the overseas version of the official platform, that was mostly a matter of branding, its primary audience was still Chinese players.

Even so, Mirror's sales performance had genuinely surprised Chen Xu.

At the same time, this served as another reminder to Chen Xu:

The game industry in this world was far more prosperous than it had been in his previous life.

"Oh, by the way, Chen Xu, are you free tonight?" Ruan Ningxue asked over the phone. "Let's celebrate your success with a dinner. Also, a friend of mine would like to meet you."

"No problem. Actually, I was planning to treat you to a meal myself, Senior. Without your help, developing Mirror wouldn't have been nearly as easy."

Chen Xu spoke sincerely.

After chatting casually for a little while longer, the two ended the call.

Setting his phone aside, Chen Xu opened the backend once again to check Mirror's sales.

Six-day cumulative sales: 58,121 copies.

The growth curve was practically vertical.

It was an explosive increase, clearly demonstrating that the "gentlemen" were a force to be reckoned with.

And judging by Mirror's current momentum, this was only the beginning.

After all, several third-party platforms had only just started carrying the game.

...

While Chen Xu happily admired Mirror's sales figures, the indie game community was anything but calm.

Media outlets that had noticed the game began compiling statistics and analyzing its performance.

After all, an 18+ title climbing to the top of the user ratings chart was astonishing enough to attract widespread attention.

Meanwhile, discussions about Mirror continued to gain momentum.

For ordinary players, accurately estimating a game's sales was difficult.

At first, the industry observers and media who had been following the game assumed it had probably sold somewhere around ten to twenty thousand copies.

But when a third-party analytics firm released its estimates, everyone paying attention was left stunned.

The estimate was...

50,000 copies sold.

Compared to the actual figure, the estimate was about eight thousand copies short.

Even so, the number was enough to leave many game designers speechless.

Those making adult games in particular felt as though their entire understanding of the market had been overturned.

An adult game selling this many copies?

You've got to be kidding.

Was fifty thousand a huge number?

Compared with blockbuster titles, not really.

Top-tier AAA games could sell several million copies on launch day alone.

Some globally renowned international releases even exceeded ten million copies on their first day.

Of course, it was impossible to compare those games with Mirror.

This was an 18+ indie game with virtually no official promotion.

More importantly, it wasn't even made by an established game developer.

Strictly speaking, it had been created by someone who wasn't originally a game designer at all.

Under those circumstances, these sales figures were absolutely explosive.

They had already reached the point of breaking records within the adult-game genre.

It might not remain unmatched forever, but it was, at the very least, unprecedented.

Before Mirror, no adult game had ever achieved such phenomenal success.

And this was only the beginning.

Many developers in the adult-game industry had a feeling that they were witnessing history.

Whether it would be remembered as a major milestone or only a minor one...

Whether Mirror was "just" an adult game or not, history was still history.