107: Chapter 107 Such a demand

June 30th, 9:00 AM, the US IGN branch.

The corridors of the editorial office were piled with various game packaging boxes sent by developers, and traces of last week’s topic meeting still remained on the whiteboard in the conference room; the atmosphere of games could be seen everywhere.

Marcus, nearly forty years old with short blonde hair and rugged features, was sitting at his workstation, preparing to start his day's work. Before him sat a cup of iced Americano and a printed review task sheet.

On the very top line of the task sheet, it clearly read:

Minecraft, from Spark Games! Global release: July 1st.

He stared at the task sheet while tidying his slightly cluttered desk, the expression on his face looking somewhat strange.

Andrew, from the opposite workstation—a young white male with blonde hair and blue eyes who was clearly much younger—popped his head out and quickly glanced at Marcus's desk. After successfully capturing the key information, he immediately asked with a grin:

"You took the Spark game review? The one called MC?"

Marcus didn't look at him, only nodding subconsciously as he said:

"I took it."

Andrew made an exaggerated expression upon hearing this and laughed:

"Didn't you say you'd wait and see with games from Chinese developers?"

This time, Marcus didn't say a word.

Because he had indeed said that, and more than once.

Marcus had worked at IGN for twelve years and had truly seen many shady tactics from Chinese developers.

IAPs, plagiarism, false advertising, and gameplay that was always "borrowing"—especially that famous Tencent, which was the epitome of such practices.

Though he knew this phenomenon existed everywhere in the world, not just in China.

But it couldn't be helped; perhaps the shock Tencent had given him was too great, leading to his exceptionally deep impression of other Chinese game developers as well.

Spark Games, a company that had only been growing for about a year, was a young developer that had managed to give Marcus a rare, different impression among the many Chinese game companies.

Although the games they had previously released hadn't been sent for review, and he hadn't had the chance to participate in their evaluation.

But he had tried playing those games after work, and for each one, he had unique insights and experiences; his impressions were very good. Among them, he particularly liked the game Slay the Spire.

Seeing Marcus's rare silence, Andrew asked with increasing interest:

"Was the review code sent to you?"

"Yeah, it was sent."

"Have you played it?"

Marcus was silent for a moment, seemingly recalling yesterday's pleasant memories as he nodded and said:

"I played it for a bit these past two days."

"How long is 'a bit'?"

"Not much, about four hours last night."

Andrew raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, a look of obvious surprise flashing across his face.

He had known Marcus for three years and knew the senior editor's habits.

For most games sent for review, he could basically reach a conclusion after playing for half an hour; anything that could make him play for more than three or four hours was either of truly good quality or of quality that shouldn't be that bad, having made mistakes it shouldn't have, and he was preparing a long article to scathingly critique it.

Thinking of this, Andrew excitedly stood up and walked over, glancing at the review task sheet while asking with great interest:

"It's truly rare for a game to keep you playing for so long. How does it feel? What score do you think you'll give it?"

Marcus didn't speak, but instead picked up his coffee and took a sip, casually flipping the review task sheet over on the desk to block Andrew's view, making him retreat back to his seat in dejection.

At 10:30 AM, the review team held its routine meeting.

The Editor-in-Chief, Matthew, was a brown-haired, balding man in his fifties who had been at IGN for fifteen years, working his way up from a junior editor to Editor-in-Chief; no one knew exactly what great skills he possessed, but he managed to hold onto his position securely.

He went through all of IGN's review tasks for the week and finally stopped at Marcus's name, looking at him with a kind smile and asking proactively:

"The Minecraft that Spark Games sent for review—what score are you planning to give it?"

Marcus felt a slight stir in his heart, but on the surface, he said calmly:

"It's not decided yet; I might need to play for another day or two before I can officially make a decision."

Matthew still didn't give up and continued to press for more information:

"What about the general direction?"

Glancing at the Editor-in-Chief, who was clearly acting a bit urgent, Marcus said coolly:

"I'm still thinking; I might only figure it out tomorrow."

Matthew glanced at him, nodded, and didn't press any further.

After the routine meeting ended, however, he specifically kept Marcus behind.

Once everyone else had left, Matthew proactively closed the door and returned to his seat, his tone as relaxed and casual as if they were just chatting as he said warmly:

"Someone took the initiative to drop a hint that if they could see a review score for Minecraft that was slightly lower than normal, their side would be very happy, and then..."

Marcus didn't say a word, only listening silently, seemingly not surprised; perhaps from the moment the Editor-in-Chief spoke his first sentence, he had already anticipated this scene playing out.

After speaking patiently for a long time, Matthew finally gestured that Marcus could leave; as the other man stood up, he added with a smile:

"I'm not trying to imply anything, nor am I trying to interfere with your right to review; I'm just letting you know."

Marcus nodded and pushed the door open to leave.

In his twelve years of doing reviews, he hadn't seen this kind of thing particularly often, but it certainly wasn't rare.

Among those instances, most were hints of potential cooperation sent by developers to raise their scores; encountering an action specifically aimed at lowering another developer's score was actually a first.

In the afternoon, Marcus continued playing Minecraft.

He found a natural cave and spent over an hour wandering inside, mining iron, coal, Lapis Lazuli, and two Diamonds.

His heart skipped a beat the moment the Diamonds were mined; it wasn't because Diamonds had any special function, but because he instinctively felt that these things were very rare—having mined for two days, he had only found these two.

He put the two Diamonds into a chest, not yet sure how to use them and also a bit reluctant to use them.

Then he started messing around with Redstone.

It all started because he wanted to make an automatic door: laying a section of Rails at the entrance and placing a Minecart so that when a person got on, the Minecart would automatically slide to the door, which would then sense it and open automatically.

This sounded simple, but in practice, it took him a long time and he still couldn't quite figure it out.

Finally, the moment the Minecart slid to the door exactly as he had envisioned and the door opened automatically, he leaned heavily back into his chair and let out a long sigh, a bright smile appearing on his chiseled, rugged face.