Peyton Holt stared at the glowing system panel hovering in his vision like a digital middle finger from fate itself.
[New System Funds approved: $5,000,000 transferred to SkyHigh Games LLC]
[Personal Cash unchanged: $18,843.12]
[Next settlement: 30 days]
[Reminder: All funds must be used for legitimate business activities. No shortcuts. No charity. No obvious sabotage.]
He could almost hear the system chuckling.
Mason stood in the doorway of their cramped dorm room, backpack slung over one shoulder, looking like he'd just witnessed a cult ritual.
"You're seriously doing this? A game about taxes? That's your big plan to... whatever it is you're trying to do?"
Peyton didn't look up from his laptop, where he was already browsing the ESDH asset store for "official IRS form templates." His fingers flew across the keyboard with the manic energy of a man who had finally found the perfect hill to die on.
"It's brilliant, Mason. Think about it. Who wants to play a game that simulates filling out tax returns? For hours? With real math? Nobody. Absolutely nobody. This thing will sell twelve copies to masochistic accountants, then die in the bargain bin. I'll lose every cent, convert it 1:1, and finally—finally—buy that beach house in Malibu where I can rot in peace."
Mason shook his head. "Dude, you're worth, like, a million bucks now from those last two games. Why are you acting like a broke bum trying to scam the lottery?"
"Because I am broke!" Peyton snapped, slamming the enter key to add a $120,000 "Complete U.S. Tax Code Database – 2000–2025 Edition" to his cart. "The company's rich. I'm just the idiot who owns it. And this system... this cursed thing won't let me touch the profits without that stupid 100:1 penalty. So yeah, taxes. The ultimate fun-killer. It'll be like Lonely Desert Highway meets The Lonely Ocean, but instead of boring driving or floating, it's boring paperwork. Unskippable. Unforgiving. Unplayable."
Mason edged toward the door. "Okay, well... good luck with that. I'm crashing at my cousin's place in Pasadena until... whatever this is blows over. Call me when you're normal again."
The door clicked shut, leaving Peyton alone with his laptop, a half-eaten bag of Doritos, and five million dollars burning a hole in his digital pocket.
He cracked his knuckles.
Time to build the flop to end all flops.
First things first: authenticity. If this game was going to tank, it had to feel real. Painfully real. So real that players would quit after five minutes and demand refunds en masse.
He spent the entire first day blowing $1,850,000 on licensing deals. The ESDH store had partnerships with the federal government for "educational simulations," so he snapped up:
- Official IRS Form Pack: $450,000 (every Schedule A through Z, plus state add-ons for all 50 states)
- Tax Law Simulator Engine: $800,000 (an AI module that randomly generated "audit events" based on real IRS case law)
- Penalty Calculator Add-on: $600,000 (accurately simulated fines, interest, and liens down to the penny)
By nightfall, the game's skeleton was in place: a drag-and-drop interface where players "filed" virtual returns using scanned replicas of actual forms. One wrong deduction? Boom—instant audit popup with a 20-minute mandatory "explanation" essay box.
Peyton playtested the alpha for two minutes and felt his soul leak out his ears.
Perfect.
Day two: the audio and ambiance. Taxes weren't just boring—they were anxiety-inducing. He needed to capture that.
$950,000 vanished into:
- Hold Music Mega Bundle: $400,000 (600 variations of elevator jazz, dial tones, and the infamous "Your call is important to us" loop, recorded by a professional voice actor who sounded like he'd rather be waterboarded)
- Sound Effects Library – Bureaucratic Edition: $350,000 (printer jams, staple guns, coffee spills, and the subtle "sigh of defeat" from 47 different voice actors)
- Ambient Despair Drone Pack: $200,000 (low-frequency hums designed to induce headaches after 15 minutes)
He wired in a mandatory 47-minute "IRS Hotline" sequence for every audit, complete with branching hold options that led nowhere. If you hung up? Instant $10,000 in-game penalty.
By the end of the day, the game felt less like entertainment and more like a psychological experiment gone wrong.
Peyton grinned at the screen. "Nobody's finishing this. Nobody."
Day three: consultants. The system rules demanded "legitimate business activities," so he couldn't just slap together garbage code. It had to work. Flawlessly. Horribly.
He posted ads on LinkedIn and Craigslist: "Seeking CPAs for game authenticity testing. $150/hour. Must be okay with soul-crushing tedium."
Eight certified public accountants showed up the next morning, looking like they'd been dragged from a tax-season bunker. Peyton rented a conference room at a WeWork knockoff for $2,000/day and put them to work.
"Make it accurate," he told them. "Every loophole. Every penalty. Every way it can go wrong."
They stared at him like he was the Antichrist.
One guy, a grizzled veteran named Frank with coffee stains on his tie, raised a hand. "You want us to... simulate actual fraud detection? Like, if the player lies about mileage deductions, the game flags it and sends a virtual levy?"
"Exactly," Peyton said, eyes gleaming. "And make the levy letters printable. Bonus if they look real enough to fool a bank teller."
Frank whistled. "Kid, this isn't a game. This is therapy for masochists."
Peyton paid them $240,000 for the week.
By day ten, the game had 12,000 branching paths, each more punishing than the last. Miss a W-2? Audit. Overclaim home office space? Penalty. Try to deduct a yacht as a business expense? Instant IRS raid cutscene with SWAT teams kicking down your virtual door.
He added a "physical mailer" feature for $1,100,000: partner with a Nevada print shop to send actual paper "audit notices" to players who opted in. (The fine print said it was fake, but who reads fine print?)
Total spent so far: $4,140,000.
The remaining $860,000 went into "polish": 4K textures for every form line, a customizable avatar that aged visibly during long sessions, and a hidden "therapy mode" that played whale sounds after every failure (but only if you paid an extra $4.99 DLC).
Peyton set the base price at $59.99—the ESDH max for indie sims.
Store description, written at 3 a.m. with bloodshot eyes:
> Tax Season Simulator 2025: The ultimate financial responsibility experience.
> File your returns. Face the audits. Feel the regret.
> Educational. Accurate. Unforgiving.
> (Not affiliated with the IRS. Please don't sue us.)
He hit publish on December 15, 2009—just in time for holiday shopping, when nobody wanted to think about taxes.
First 48 hours: 203 downloads. 198 refunds. Net revenue: $300.
Peyton danced around the dorm room like he'd won the lottery.
"This is it! The flop I've been waiting for!"
Then, on December 17, Old Joe uploaded.
**"I Let a Game Do My Actual Taxes for 72 Hours Straight – The IRS Owes Me $14,000 Now??"**
The video opened with Old Joe in a green visor, surrounded by fake W-2s, screaming into the camera: "Chat, this game is either genius or a federal crime. Let's find out."
He live-streamed the entire process, using his real 2009 income numbers (blurred for privacy, but the math was spot-on). At hour 47, during a simulated audit, the game flagged a deduction he'd missed in real life.
He paused the stream, called his actual accountant, and discovered he was owed a $14k refund.
The clip went viral.
By Christmas Eve:
Downloads: 9,447,882
Gross revenue: $567 million
TurboTax emergency update: "We are aware of the competitor simulation and are investigating accuracy claims."
The IRS hotline crashed from players calling to ask if their in-game returns were valid.
One senator tweeted: "This game is teaching Americans more about taxes than our public schools. Ban it or make it mandatory?"
Settlement day hit like a freight train.
[Tax Season Simulator 2025 – Final company profit: $512,884,003]
[Personal conversion (100:1): $5,128,840.03]
[Money forever out of reach: $507,755,162.97]
Peyton sat on the dorm floor, surrounded by printed fake audit letters the warehouse had test-mailed him.
He was worth over five million personally.
The company was a half-billion-dollar behemoth.
And for the first time, he didn't scream.
He just laughed.
A quiet, broken laugh that echoed through the empty room.
Mason texted from Pasadena: "Saw the news. You okay?"
Peyton replied: "Define okay."
Then he opened the system panel.
[Request new System Funds? Y/N]
His finger hovered.
The cycle continued.
To be continued…