The urban planning designer played Infinite World for about two days straight.
He was completely hooked.
Objectively speaking, the game still wasn't that amazing yet. But because he worked in this field, he had a special emotional attachment to city planning.
So he couldn't help himself—he wanted to build a city in the game, one that matched his own vision.
This city would be very different from modern ones.
Among the countless civilizations in Infinite World, some had extremely low levels of technology.
The game didn't include a civilization-evolution system, so city construction varied greatly between civilizations.
Low-tech civilizations couldn't build skyscrapers. If they wanted to concentrate population and maximize industrial and cultural development, they needed very particular planning choices.
Some civilizations naturally lived underground. Their cities weren't flat at all—instead, they resembled mountain cities like Chongqing, or something even more extreme.
It was genuinely fascinating.
Each civilization had its own distinct characteristics. Forcibly mixing elements from different cultures into a single world created strong dissonance and many points of disharmony.
Whoever designed this game clearly knew what they were doing.
A few days later, he had successfully created several cities belonging to different civilizations. Unable to contain his excitement, he rushed to the Battle.net community to share his achievements.
He was confident.
He believed he was an expert in this field, and among regular players, people like him should be extremely rare. Surely he'd be showered with admiration, maybe even called a "big shot."
Lost in such fantasies, he proudly uploaded his creations.
But once the upload finished and he browsed the community, he froze.
Before him, countless players had already shared all kinds of creations.
Some were building cities, just like him.
Others were experimenting with logic circuits inside the game.
Actual logic circuits—similar to real-world ones—implemented using in-game mechanics.
The urban planner stared in disbelief.
This is even possible?!
Some players had already started doing simple art inside the game.
They laid out existing materials on the ground, stacking and arranging them to form large pictures.
To him, that sounded incredibly boring. He couldn't imagine why anyone would want to do something like that in a game.
Yet… they did it anyway.
Still, once he published his own work, it quickly attracted a lot of attention.
Some players even chased after him asking for his save files, convinced that experiencing the game inside such a well-designed city would be incredible.
Anything was better than wandering endlessly through the empty, desolate Infinite World landscapes.
Inside Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's former headquarters, more than a hundred developers were celebrating wildly.
After three days, key metrics—concurrent users, interaction data, sales numbers—had all been compiled. Gamestar Electronic Entertainment updated them in real time on its official website.
When the team saw the results, they were so happy they nearly jumped off the floor.
Some even burst into tears, including the lead creator who had persisted all this time.
The former spiky-haired young man no longer wore that hairstyle.
"It wasn't easy… it really wasn't easy," he said, voice trembling. "This sudden surge in sales—it truly wasn't easy."
In just three days after the 3.0 update, Infinite World sold over one million copies, reaching the top of Battle.net's best-seller chart within a single week—using only three days.
Thanks to the groundwork laid by version 2.0, players' expectations for version 3.0 were significantly higher.
Strictly speaking, 3.0 could almost be considered a brand-new game.
A newer engine. Newer technology. Many new gameplay systems.
Selling it as a full sequel would have been completely reasonable.
But as the lead creator, he insisted on continuing with free updates.
Because he wanted to be responsible for the promises he had made in the past.
If he couldn't even keep his own word, it would haunt him.
If Mikufu had known his thinking, they would have outright refused—no funding, possibly even threats of lawsuits.
But at Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, all he did was explain his game philosophy to Takayuki—and immediately earned his approval.
"Money isn't the issue," Takayuki had said."My only requirement is that you do what you promised."
Those words alone made him decide that even if he worked for Gamestar Electronic Entertainment for the rest of his life, it would be worth it.
A boss like that was worth following.
So after some time developing Infinite World, he decisively led his team to settle in Japan.
Only there could they receive Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's fullest support.
Whenever help was needed, teams from Gamestar Electronic Entertainment could even come in directly to assist.
This development environment was completely open—no reservations, no hidden agendas. Everyone was pure in intent.
They all shared one goal: to create a great game.
A game that players would remember forever.
And now, he was steadily moving toward that goal.
Version 3.0 had already shown the first signs of success.
They celebrated. They rejoiced. They danced with joy inside that old office building, worn by time but filled with life.
That very night, they held a full-blown party on site to celebrate their game's success.
"Do you think the big boss will show up?"
"Probably not. He's usually insanely busy—no way he has time."
"Man, I really want to see the big boss in person. He must be super handsome."
"There are photos everywhere. Of course he's handsome—and he's got that uniquely Eastern calm and elegance."
"Photos aren't the same as the real thing. He must be even better-looking in person."
At the party, everyone set aside their previous exhaustion and joined in with the most relaxed state they'd had in years, chatting and laughing about whether Takayuki would appear.
They joked and laughed like they hadn't in a long time.
The past few years had truly been hard.
On one hand, they had endured the early public backlash.
Infinite World had deeply disappointed many players. Some extremists even mailed blades and dead animals to the studio's address.
Back then, the developers were more heartbroken than the players themselves.
Because the main problem hadn't been them—it had been Mikufu.
The lead creator had long insisted the game needed more time, more polishing before release.
But Mayron Kess didn't care.
He only wanted to release it at the peak of marketing hype, maximizing profit. Reputation didn't matter.
As long as it made money.
The lead creator couldn't refuse.
And in the end, Mikufu made its money—while the ruined reputation was dumped squarely on the shoulders of the development team.