5: Chapter 5 sales take off, surpassing 1,500!

Jiang Yuan was woken up by the vibration of her phone.

To be precise, she was woken up by Lin Xi's WeChat messages.

The phone screen was lit up, messages popping out one after another, making the nightstand buzz.

She squinted her sleepy eyes, reached for the phone, and checked the time—it was only eight in the morning.

She had slept for less than five hours.

But the frequency of Lin Xi's messages woke her up instantly:

"Xiao Yuan!!!"

"Quick, look at the Steam backend!!!"

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy shit!!!"

"Do you know how many people were in my stream last night!!!"

"Seven thousand!! Seven thousand!!!"

"Your game is blowing up!!!"

Jiang Yuan was stunned for two seconds, then scrambled out of bed.

Last night, she had only turned off the webpage to sleep after watching Lin Xi's stream and confirming the girl was truly hooked.

At that time, the backend data only showed 47 sales; she thought she'd take it slow, no rush.

But seeing Lin Xi's reaction now...

Jiang Yuan ran barefoot to her computer and opened the Steam backend.

Then she froze.

Sales: 417.

Reviews: 77, 100% positive rate.

Jiang Yuan rubbed her eyes.

She hadn't misread it.

In one night, sales had increased by 370.

She opened the review section and scrolled down one by one.

"Came from Lin Xi's stream, this game is seriously addictive!"

— Recommended, Playtime: 1.2 hours

"Eighteen bucks won't break the bank, and you won't be cheated."

— Recommended, Playtime: 0.8 hours

"Can someone tell me how to survive past ten minutes?"

— Recommended, Playtime: 2.3 hours

"Already recommended it to my three roommates, and now they're all ignoring me QAQ"

— Recommended, Playtime: 3.1 hours

"Go domestic indie games!"

— Recommended, Playtime: 1.7 hours

Jiang Yuan read through them one by one, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

There wasn't a single negative review!

Just as she was enjoying herself, her phone rang again; it was a call from Lin Xi.

"Are you awake yet!"

Lin Xi's sweet voice blasted from the receiver:

"Did you see the backend! Did you see it!"

"I saw it."

Jiang Yuan held the phone a bit further away and chuckled:

"417 copies."

"417 copies! In one night!"

Lin Xi was so excited she was incoherent:

"I streamed until two o'clock last night. The bullet chat was full of people asking what the game was called. My throat is hoarse, but I'm happy, you know, Xiao Yuan? I'm really happy!"

"I know."

Jiang Yuan smiled:

"Thank you."

Lin Xi said excitedly:

"Thank me for what!"

"It's because your game is good; otherwise, it wouldn't matter what I streamed. By the way, what do you plan to do next? Keep making new games? Or update this one?"

Hearing this, Jiang Yuan fell into deep thought and said reflectively:

"Let's see how things go first. It might be a bit early to start a new game right now."

"Alright, then take your time thinking!"

"I need to catch up on some sleep; streaming all night has me exhausted! I'll keep streaming your game tonight. Hahaha, mwah!"

The call ended.

Jiang Yuan held her phone, looking at the backend data on the computer screen.

417 copies at 18 yuan each is 7,506 yuan.

After Steam's cut, she'd get about five thousand or so.

And her cost—the 3,500 yuan spent on the gacha—had already been earned back.

And this was only the first day.

She remembered the prediction in the system:

[If community self-propagation is triggered, sales can exceed 10,000 copies]

Ten thousand copies.

One hundred and eighty thousand yuan.

Jiang Yuan took a deep breath and stood up to wash her face.

The girl in the mirror had slightly red eyes; it was unclear if it was from lack of sleep or something else.

She said to the mirror:

"See? People are playing the game you made!"

Over the next three days, the data skyrocketed.

By the end of the first day, sales broke 600.

By the end of the second day, sales broke 900.

By the end of the third day, sales broke 1,500.

The number of reviews surpassed 300, and the positive rating remained at 99%.

The only negative review was because "it's too easy, I beat it in half an hour," which resulted in over eighty replies from other players like "You must have beaten the demo" and "The full version has thirty waves, show me you beating one."

The first thing Jiang Yuan did every morning when she woke up was check the backend data and then giggle at the numbers for a while.

Lin Xi hadn't been idle either. She played [Vampire Survivors] in her stream every day, and her followers grew from 3,000 to over 8,000. She had already received a contract invitation from the platform.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, she came knocking again.

In her hands were two cups of milk tea.

"Open up, open up!"

Lin Xi shouted from outside the door:

"I have good news!"

Jiang Yuan opened the door, took the milk tea, and looked at Lin Xi's face, which was flushed with excitement.

Lin Xi flopped onto the sofa, not even bothering to insert the straw, and said excitedly:

"Do you know? Do you know? Last night during my stream, peak concurrent viewers reached nine thousand! Nine thousand! Oh my god!"

"Congrats."

Jiang Yuan handed her a straw.

"What's there to congratulate? It's just that your game is too addictive."

Lin Xi took a sip of milk tea and said:

"By the way, what's your Steam backend at now?"

"Fifteen hundred."

Lin Xi almost spat out her milk tea:

"How many?!"

"Fifteen hundred."

Jiang Yuan repeated:

"As of this morning."

Lin Xi stared wide-eyed and calculated for a long time:

"Fifteen hundred times eighteen... twenty-seven thousand? Holy crap, Xiao Yuan, you've already made twenty-seven thousand?"

Jiang Yuan said with a smile:

"How could it be that much? I haven't even deducted taxes yet. After taxes, it'll be around eighteen thousand."

"That's still a lot!"

Lin Xi squirmed on the sofa in excitement:

"It's only been a few days! I work my butt off streaming for a month just to earn living expenses, and you're making money while lying down?"

Jiang Yuan gave a helpless smile, not mentioning that she had only slept five or six hours a day for the past twenty-odd days, coding until her hands cramped.

"Right."

Lin Xi suddenly remembered something:

"What do you plan to do next? Just keep selling this one game?"

Jiang Yuan paused for a moment.

She was actually thinking about that question too.

[Vampire Survivors] could definitely keep selling for a long time; the long-tail effect would be significant.

But she couldn't live off this one game forever, could she?

Besides, she had the system and so many games she could exchange for with points.

"I'll probably make something new."

"A new game?"

Lin Xi's eyes lit up:

"What genre? More like this one?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Jiang Yuan rested her chin on her snowy-white hand, falling into thought:

"I'll see how future sales go before deciding what to make next."

Lin Xi nodded and took another sip of milk tea:

"Alright, tell me first when the time comes, and I'll promote it for you!"

"Okay."

After seeing Lin Xi off, Jiang Yuan sat back down at her computer.

She opened the system panel and checked her point balance.

70 points.

She hadn't done any gacha pulls or exchanged for anything over the past few days.

But now that sales had exceeded expectations, she would soon have cash flow.

Should she...

She hesitated for a moment, opened the payment interface, and topped up 500 yuan.

Testing the waters further.

[Recharge successful, obtained 5 gacha attempts]

Pull.

The wheel started spinning.

[10 Points]

[10 Points]

[10 Points]

[20 Points (Small Crit)]

[10 Points]

[Gacha session ended, total points obtained: 60]

Jiang Yuan's lips twitched.

Five hundred yuan for sixty points.

This drop rate was quite realistic.

She topped up another five hundred.

[Recharge successful, obtained 5 gacha attempts]

Pull again.

[10 Points]

[10 Points]

[100 Points (Crit)]

[10 Points]

[10 Points]

[Gacha session ended, total points obtained: 140]

Adding the two together, one thousand yuan for two hundred points.

Looking at the results, Jiang Yuan silently did the math.

At this drop rate, if she wanted to exchange for a game with even a bit of scale, she'd have to top up tens of thousands.

However, she wasn't short on money now; what she lacked was a good game.

No, that's not right.

She wasn't short on good games either; what she lacked was knowing which good game to choose!