Inside the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, Evan's office was bright and impeccably clean. Besides the standard executive desk and computer setup, there were two additional computers specifically dedicated to gaming tucked away in the corner, along with various board games and some console equipment from this world, plus other gaming-related facilities. All of these were there for Evan to relax and unwind with whenever he felt mentally exhausted from work. In his previous life back on Earth, he'd always dreamed of having his own company where he could play games in his own office whenever he wanted—this setup could genuinely be considered the realization of a dream from that past existence.
Logan knocked on the office door, and his gaze swept briefly over the pile of gaming consoles in the corner without lingering there for long before he addressed Evan professionally. "Evan, you wanted to see me?"
Evan nodded and gestured toward the chairs across from his desk. "Come on in, have a seat."
After Logan had settled himself comfortably into one of the chairs, Evan leaned back casually in his own executive chair and asked directly, "How are all those media resources your department has been contacting coming along? Where do we stand?"
Logan pulled out his notebook to double-check his notes and reported back:
"We've successfully contacted three advertising agencies and five media outlets that we collaborate with frequently, and we've reached preliminary cooperation agreements with all of them. The three advertising agencies have also been connected and coordinated with each other, and we've identified all the overlapping website placements and completed price negotiations for those. The website advertising side of things is completely ready to go. As for the specific advertising deployment methods and creative approaches, we've been developing several different proposal options, and we're expecting to have a complete, finalized marketing plan ready to present by this weekend."
Evan nodded approvingly. "That's excellent efficiency and progress. But the main reason I called you in here today is actually to tell you that the overall situation has changed somewhat from our original plan."
Logan's expression remained calm and professional, simply waiting patiently for Evan to continue his explanation.
"I told you before that our game was positioned as a smaller-scale production project, so even though we both knew that having cinematic CG promotion would be significantly more effective for marketing, we had to abandon that option entirely due to budget and cost considerations. But now—we actually have professional CG available."
Seeing Logan's eyes widen noticeably in surprise at this announcement, Evan gave a somewhat awkward, sheepish smile before he began to deliver his carefully constructed explanation—which was, to be completely honest, an outright lie:
"I don't really know anyone personally who does professional CG work here domestically in our market. However, I had a college classmate who invested in a special effects production company over in America a few years back. I happened to chat with him about our project situation a while ago, and he mentioned that his company had always wanted to create an Eastern mythology-style CG piece to try expanding and broadening their business channels into new markets. So I managed to get a promotional CG from him at an extremely favorable, heavily discounted price—basically as a personal favor. This particular expense came entirely out of my own private account and personal funds, so it won't affect the company's allocated game development budget at all. You don't need to worry about that impacting our other spending."
Looking at Logan's genuinely wide-eyed expression of surprise, Evan felt somewhat uncertain internally, wondering if he could actually successfully bluff his way through this explanation convincingly. But he'd strategically mentioned it being an American company, so Logan probably wouldn't bother going out of his way to investigate and verify the story if he had nothing better to do with his time... right? Anyway, he'd keep this particular secret for as long as he possibly could manage. He'd figure out how to handle the specific details if anyone pressed him on it later, Evan thought with determined optimism.
Then, before giving Logan any opportunity to ask follow-up questions or express doubts, Evan directly reached over and rotated his nearby secondary monitor around to face in Logan's direction instead.
"He sent me the finished CG file last night. Take a look at what we're working with here, and then I need you to work with your department team to develop a completely new marketing plan that properly incorporates and leverages this CG asset."
The same exact CG video, when viewed by different people with different professional perspectives, landed quite differently. Logan was even more thoroughly impressed and excited by the promotional potential than Evan himself had been initially. After all, as a seasoned game industry professional and an experienced veteran in marketing and promotion who had been working in the trenches for several years now, Logan understood—just as instinctively as Evan did—exactly how devastatingly powerful a well-crafted, professional-quality CG could be for a game's promotional campaign effectiveness. Among an entire marketplace full of low-budget, low-production-value games, if one company was actually willing to invest serious money into creating a high-quality cinematic CG trailer, it would produce an effect roughly similar to having exclusive access to nuclear weapons during World War II. The fundamental difference in promotional impact and effectiveness, if it could be described in just two words, would be: "utter dominance."
The CG wasn't particularly long in duration, with virtually no complex plot or narrative structure, totaling only about fifteen seconds of runtime. But Logan immediately seized control of the mouse and proceeded to watch the short video over and over again multiple times in succession, completely mesmerized. Finally, after his fifth or sixth viewing, he reluctantly released the mouse and leaned back heavily in his chair in a posture that mirrored Evan's own relaxed position. All of his previous questions and potential doubts had been completely swallowed down and forgotten.
At this point, Logan now firmly believed that regardless of where this particular CG had actually originated from or how Evan had truly obtained it, since Evan was saying it belonged to and was intended for Redbird Studios, then it absolutely must be—and could only possibly be—for Redbird Studios' use!
If this promotional CG could be metaphorically compared to a nuclear weapon, then Logan would be the person who got to control when and how to deploy it strategically.
For example, in competitive gaming scenarios, while evenly matched back-and-forth battles might seem exciting and dramatic to observers, the truth was that many players still fundamentally preferred to completely crush and dominate their opponents one-sidedly. And this particular CG gave Logan that exact same feeling of overwhelming superiority and power.
To all his old professional friends and rivals that he used to engage in competitive back-and-forth marketing battles with across the advertising landscape: Sorry, but now Redbird Studios also has access to cinematic-quality CG!
Without needing to exchange any additional words or explanations, Evan directly handed over the USB drive with the CG video file copied onto it to Logan. Logan accepted it with visible joy and excitement, mumbling some syllables of gratitude that Evan didn't quite catch or understand clearly, before cheerfully hurrying back to his department to announce this game-changing news to his team. Intense competition definitely existed within the advertising industry between companies, and Logan genuinely believed that the people working in his department could finally release a collective sigh of relief knowing they now had this incredible asset...
A full week later, Evan directly gathered the entire senior management team together to formally review and evaluate the operations department's comprehensive advertising plan proposal. After everyone present had taken the time to properly understand the sophisticated concept of viral marketing that had been integrated throughout the strategy, they were all thoroughly amazed and impressed by Logan's work and strategic thinking. After carefully examining all the detailed operational specifics and tactical implementations, every single person in that meeting room genuinely believed that the success rate and effectiveness probability of this particular marketing plan was extremely high! And that fifteen-second cinematic CG trailer was the absolute best possible insurance policy for guaranteeing results!
Evan himself was also incredibly and pleasantly surprised by what he saw. The depth and sophistication of content revealed throughout the plan clearly demonstrated to Evan that Logan had thoroughly and completely mastered the core concepts of both "nuclear bomb marketing" and "viral marketing" that Evan had taught and explained to him previously. When it came specifically to advertising strategy and execution, Logan had already genuinely surpassed Evan himself, who could really only parrot back things he'd heard about in his previous life without truly deep expertise. This realization made Evan feel immensely gratified and proud of Logan's professional growth.
At the same time, Riverside Sound Studio—the music outsourcing company that Owen had arranged and connected Evan with—had also successfully passed Evan's own personal review and evaluation process, and had been officially hired to handle all the music composition and voice acting work for Swallowing Heaven and Earth. Marcus Li, the owner and founder of Riverside Sound Studio, after carefully receiving and reviewing Evan's extremely detailed written specifications and requirements for the soundtrack, completely refused to believe Evan's modest claim that he "didn't know anything about music composition."
The so-called "Soundtrack Specifications Document" that Evan had provided was meticulously and precisely detailed about exactly how many musical phrases and transitions the required compositions needed, their exact duration lengths, tempo changes, emotional progression, and numerous other highly technical aspects. How could someone who genuinely knew absolutely nothing about professional music theory and composition possibly plan out something this thoroughly detailed and technically specific? Unless he'd somehow traveled to the future and personally heard the completely finished version of the soundtrack already! It seemed impossible otherwise.
The UI design work and original card art assets from the art department had also been successfully completed and delivered right on schedule. For this first version launch, the team had created one basic starter Kun Beast design, 48 different N-rank common Kun Beast cards, 40 R-rank rare Kun Beast designs, 29 SR-rank super rare creatures, and 9 prestigious UR-rank ultra rare Kun Beasts—all successfully completed and delivered with excellent quality.
Sasha had also followed Evan's specific advice and creative direction by designing special unique visual effects and distinctive decorative borders for two particular SR-rank card designs, which would serve as a special commemorative memento exclusively for players who participated in the first version launch. Evan privately estimated to himself that if he carefully hoarded and saved a few accounts with these limited cards in advance, they might even sell for genuinely impressive prices in the secondary market sometime in the future as collector's items.
Most importantly of all, the game development department had also successfully met their ambitious production schedule, completing the first playable test version of Swallowing Heaven and Earth just before the season's first snowfall arrived. And thus, Evan's very first commercial game release in this new life had finally reached the exciting eve of its official public launch!
In the bustling, energized office area, Evan stood up from his desk with a genuine smile spreading across his face and enthusiastically led the applause for everyone present. All of this celebration and gratitude was for the sincere cooperation and dedicated hard work of the company's employees throughout this entire intensive development period. Although there genuinely hadn't been excessive amounts of mandatory overtime required, their honest cooperation and focus during regular working hours had led to remarkably high productivity and efficiency levels. Ultimately, the test version of Swallowing Heaven and Earth had been completed both quickly and to an extremely high quality standard.
Evan then made an exciting announcement: five full days of paid vacation leave for everyone, with the understanding that during those five days off, each person would spend one day coming into the company office to participate in comprehensive internal testing of Swallowing Heaven and Earth. Evan gave brief instructions to Sasha to organize and schedule all the employees into five separate rotating groups and send out the notifications with everyone's assigned testing day.
As for himself personally, Evan was planning to be physically present in the office for all five complete days of the internal testing period. He'd played no fewer than ten different gacha games extensively in his previous life, which made him easily the most qualified and experienced person among everyone present to properly test and evaluate Swallowing Heaven and Earth's gameplay systems and balance.
Plz Throw Powerstnes.