Game reviewers.
Arguably the saltiest profession in the world.
What players love most about online games can be seen directly through traffic and reputation. But even so, reviewers can't afford to sit idle. To stay relevant, they rack their brains day and night, wandering across the continent of Azeroth, digging for any hint of new content.
World of Warcraft is simply too enormous for the players of today.It is—almost literally—an entire world.
Before this, the game market was full of cheap fantasies about slaying dragons, maps were tiny, and players were practically herded along by paper-thin storylines.
But World of Warcraft was different. It didn't force players to do anything.
You didn't even have to level up.
You could live peacefully as a sightseeing tourist if you wanted. After all, the game's visuals were so stunning that playing it felt like stepping into another reality.
Chen Li was a Chinese game reviewer.
And as a professional reviewer in Huaxia, the pressure on him was immense.His family didn't support him.His friends couldn't understand him.
Can you make money doing that?Does anyone pay you a salary?
What Chen Li heard most often every day was:"Can you do something serious besides playing games? Your uncle needs an extra hand at the construction site—go help him!"
Every time he heard this, Chen Li felt like crying.
He had loved games since childhood. Back in school, he was the king of gaming in class—no matter what game his classmates talked about, he could instantly become an expert. Even in the dress-up games the girls liked, he had plenty of experience.
After graduating, he dove straight into the unusual career of game reviewer.
Of course, the trash games flooding the market didn't bring him any fame or income. No matter how sharply he critiqued them, no one paid.
So he ended up labeled as a "freeloader," and old friends began to distance themselves.
But he never abandoned the obsession in his heart—no one truly understood the burden he carried.
In reality, society demands one thing: money.Chen Li couldn't make any. No matter how hard he tried, he eventually became everyone's joke.
He couldn't bear it.
At one point, he even contemplated suicide.
But on the very night he planned to end his life, a game appeared before him—his special source of information revealed that an arcade title had suddenly exploded in popularity in North America: The King of Fighters.
From the first second he saw the video, the flame of hope reignited in his deadened eyes.
His sharp instinct told him instantly: This game is going to blow up.
And he was right. The King of Fighters became a massive hit.
Because of it, Chen Li earned the first pot of gold in his life—his very first significant income—enough to pull him out of his desperate situation.
But he was smart. He made money quietly, without showing off. To outsiders, he was still the good-for-nothing game addict, an almost thirty-year-old freeloader clinging to his parents.
No one wanted anything to do with him.
Only through suffering does one learn how strong the human heart can become.
Yes—Chen Li had been tempered.
If he were an ordinary person, the moment he made money, he would have rushed to prove himself to everyone who looked down on him.
But not Chen Li. He ignored them.
Those people were laymen. He didn't even consider them worth associating with.
This was now his second year as a reviewer.
The era of The King of Fighters was fading, but Antarctic Games—the company he had followed from the beginning—never disappointed. They released hit after hit.
He felt genuine gratitude toward the company that had saved his life.
When he first saw World of Warcraft, Chen Li couldn't even believe his eyes.
His excitement at that moment was easily ten times greater than having a beautiful woman lie beside him for a month.
As a reviewer, he understood the difficulty of game development and the potential trajectory of a truly great game.
But this time, he couldn't even bring himself to write a review.
Because he was completely addicted.For someone who lived on games, this was heaven.
He had been a gamer since childhood, and he loved PK battles ever since The King of Fighters. In World of Warcraft he continued that passion, perhaps seeking psychological comfort by defeating others—relief for old wounds.
He played for several days straight. The floor was covered with empty Red Bulls and Jianlibao bottles. He nearly collapsed at his desk before suddenly remembering—he had work to do!
The realization jolted him awake.
He didn't want to close the game. If the community's power never went out, he would have stayed online forever.
Antarctic Games packed so much black technology into their work that even running massive games for days caused no lag at all.
Finally, he submitted his review.
Exhaustion washed over him, but as he stared at the monitor, he murmured softly:
"Antarctic dad…"
Everyone knows reviewers must remain neutral. They cannot randomly praise or smear a title.
But at that moment, Chen Li truly believed Antarctic Game Company produced masterpieces of the century—and that all other games were garbage.
The next day, when he logged into the reviewer community, he immediately sensed a bad wind blowing.
"There are actually people slandering my Antarctic father's game? If you don't need your eyes, donate them to the blind!"
Cursing as he typed, Chen Li quickly looked into who the critic was.
With his sharp instinct, he pieced together clues from the poster's past messages and discovered that this so-called "peer" was simply a puppet for another game company.
Chen Li's gaze turned cold.
"The lackeys of Wind and Snow Company dare to attack my Great Antarctica?! Look at the trash they make! Their rip-off King of Fighters clone was beaten into the dirt by players—its data is a complete disaster! And now they dare imitate Warcraft? Know your own worth! The garbage they produce looks like a toddler's mosaic game!"
After browsing further, he realized this wasn't an isolated incident.
He decided he couldn't let these people run wild.
And so, he prepared to break his own update schedule.He had just published a review yesterday—yet today, he would write another.