If the initial fundamental purpose of any game is simply to be fun and entertaining, then the unique joy of participating in a beta test is something even greater and more engaging.
Finding bugs, systematically fixing those bugs, and ultimately making the entire game run better and smoother—this process in itself represents a special kind of satisfaction and fun. So Evan had decided he wanted to share this particular joy with all the players who would participate.
"So basically, we're going to launch a data-wiping beta test?" Emily looked across at Evan, who was sitting opposite her in the conference room, passionately discussing and explaining how finding bugs could genuinely be considered a joy in itself for the right kind of player.
Evan paused his enthusiastic speech mid-sentence and nodded. "Of course we are. Why wouldn't we? Our team has been on vacation for a full week now, and it's definitely time to get everyone busy and productive again.
Although we went through comprehensive internal testing this past week with our own staff, the game is still far from being truly perfect or polished.
From our perspective as professional game developers and creators, we naturally tend to think that as long as the game runs stably and remains relatively bug-free, that's good enough to ship.
But for actual players out there in the real world, meticulously polishing every single aspect and detail, and transforming a rough, unfinished game into something genuinely user-friendly—that's the true final step in proper game development."
Emily pouted slightly, clearly unimpressed by this explanation. "What a load of corporate nonsense. To put it simply and honestly, there are too few employees working here right now, and our internal testing sample size just wasn't large enough to catch everything."
Evan rubbed his nose self-consciously and said nothing in response, because she wasn't wrong. Redbird Studios was currently organized into three main operational departments: Research & Development, Art & Design, and Operations & Marketing, overseen respectively by Owen Matthews, Sasha Quinn, and Logan Hayes as department heads.
However, those three major teams combined only totaled about forty-one people at present. When you included additional support staff like logistics, administration, HR, and other overhead positions, Redbird was actually still just a relatively small company with only a little over fifty total employees on payroll.
When it came to effective testing coverage, it followed the same fundamental principle as statistical sampling in mathematics: no matter how professional and skilled your internal staff might be, if your sample size is fundamentally insufficient, the conclusions and results you draw from that testing simply won't be statistically reliable or comprehensive.
So after a solid week of intensive internal bug fixing and quality assurance work, Evan had decided it was finally time for everyone—meaning the general gaming public—to pitch in and help refine the game further.
During this particular week that had just passed, the R&D and Art departments had been enjoying a well-deserved extended holiday break. But for the Operations department, their absolute busiest and most critical time period had only just begun.
Due to the company's limited available advertising budget, Evan initially hadn't even considered purchasing expensive ad placements on major social media platforms or premium websites. Instead, he'd followed the classic guerrilla marketing principle of "encircling the cities from the countryside"—targeting smaller markets first.
The strategy was to completely saturate smaller, less reputable websites with aggressive advertisements—the kind of incredibly intrusive pop-up ads that appear immediately the moment you click anywhere on the page, and which might not even actually close properly when you desperately hit the 'X' button trying to dismiss them.
In this particular regard, smaller websites had absolutely no integrity or ethical standards whatsoever. They'd do literally anything and run any advertisement as long as the contracted ad playback duration and view count was guaranteed, which was exactly the kind of unscrupulous partner Evan needed at this particular moment.
Just as Evan and the Operations department had carefully predicted and hoped, within only three days of the campaign launch, the promotional short film for Swallowing Heaven and Earth that had been released by Redbird Studios received an absolutely tremendous response and viral engagement.
Countless players across the internet were asking each other variations of "Where did this incredible promotional CG come from?" and "What kind of game is this 'Swallowing Heaven and Earth' thing mentioned in the video title?"
During this organic viral process, Redbird Studios itself also began entering the broader gaming community's field of vision and awareness for the very first time.
In the modern internet age, every single online user becomes an enthusiastic amateur detective—a regular Sherlock Holmes—when it comes to investigating interesting gossip and mysterious situations.
Initially, a gaming content creator on social media reposted Redbird's promotional CG video to their followers, and subsequently, more and more players began actively debating whether it was genuinely Redbird's own original CG work, or whether it was actually stolen footage lifted from some foreign film that nobody had identified yet.
The relatively prosperous and well-developed cultural industry in this world had also promoted strong implementation and enforcement of copyright protection laws. So unlike Evan's previous life where various movie clips and game CG sequences could be freely misused and pirated without consequence, here in this world, if copyright infringement was confirmed and proven, financial compensation demands, lawsuits, and industry blacklisting were pretty much guaranteed to follow as standard procedure.
Subsequently, another knowledgeable and respected content creator with the handle @GameFoodStation stepped forward publicly to vouch for Redbird's legitimacy, posting a detailed statement:
"This short fifteen-second CG video from Redbird Studios is absolutely, definitively not stolen content from any other source.
At the very least, in recent years of following the industry closely, I personally haven't seen anything even remotely similar in style or content to this particular CG in any domestic or international film releases, or in game promotional materials across various genres.
So for now, it can and should be considered Redbird Studios' own original CG created specifically for their product 'Swallowing Heaven and Earth.' And in my professional opinion, this CG represents genuinely world-class production quality, with each individual frame likely costing at least a thousand dollars to produce."
With the public endorsement and verification from a major influencer with significant credibility, Redbird Studios finally entered the broader player community's active radar and awareness.
Subsequently, more related background information about Redbird Studios began getting dug up and circulated by curious internet investigators. For instance, the fact that Redbird Studios was actually a relatively old, established company, but its operational scale and team size had never managed to grow particularly large over the years.
Or the detail that Redbird Studios had originally started out by making simple text-based games, and had later also produced visual novel style games, but their financial situation had always seemed quite tight—definitely not like a company that would have spare money lying around to hire a major professional studio to create expensive CG.
And based on careful analysis of Redbird's entire catalog of past released works, this level of CG production was also extremely unlikely to have been produced by Redbird Studios' internal team themselves.
Because if Redbird actually had the capability and talent to produce CG of this exceptional caliber in-house, players definitely wouldn't only be hearing about this company for the first time right now. Major studios and publishers would have already been beating down their door trying to hire them or acquire the company, wouldn't they?
So the deeper that curious players dug into this mystery, the more genuinely excited they became as they discovered even more puzzling mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding Redbird Studios and its history: Had some mysterious wealthy investor recently injected capital? Had the company's owner won the lottery and used the windfall to hire a foreign production team? Was this actually a foreign CG production giant going public in the American market through a shell company acquisition?
By the end of the speculation cycle, wild rumors were flying absolutely everywhere across forums and social media. Evan himself probably would have dropped his jaw straight to the floor in shock if he'd actually seen some of the more outlandish theories people were seriously proposing.
Amidst this entire chaotic flurry of viral news and speculation, Rachel Waters, a senior editor working for GAME World—one of the leading and most respected game journalism outlets in the country—keenly noticed a relatively inconspicuous name listed on Redbird Studios' official company website: Evan Carter.
Just one day later, Evan found himself face-to-face with the capable and professional editor from GAME World, Rachel Waters, who had shown up directly at the company offices.
Rachel Waters, standing before Evan in person, wasn't breathtakingly beautiful in a conventional model sense, but she was definitely what you'd call an impressive and striking woman who commanded attention.
Her neat, professional business suit somehow managed to exude a subtle hint of confident authority while simultaneously and perfectly accentuating her genuinely shapely figure underneath.
With her dark hair pulled back in a single practical ponytail and wearing sensible flat shoes, she projected an image that was neither aggressively intimidating nor radiating an overly sunny, peppy vitality. The overall effect left Evan with an excellent and very positive first impression of her professionalism.
Evan immediately gestured for her to follow him, personally leading her through the office to the company's newly established reception room—their very first dedicated space for hosting visitors.
"I have to admit I'm surprised, Ms. Waters, that you were able to arrive here in Northfield City so quickly after the news broke.
I'm assuming that it's primarily that fifteen-second CG of ours that made such a strong impression on you and your editorial team. I can hardly believe that a short promotional video would be enough to prompt you to fly all the way out here specifically to interview me in person."
Rachel crisply and efficiently opened her professional black leather notebook, carefully pulled out a single sheet of paper from inside, and handed it across to Evan.
It was a clipping from a previous issue of GAME World magazine, specifically the detailed report covering Harborview University's annual graduation design competition. Evan's name as the competition champion naturally appeared prominently in the article.
After handing the clipping over to Evan, Rachel smiled warmly at him and continued speaking in a calm, measured, unhurried tone:
"After you won the championship at Harborview University's competition, Evan, I actually made a point to keep a close eye on your career trajectory and what you'd do next.
Harborview University's graduation design competition is held annually as a major event, which means there's technically a 'best graduate' winner every single year.
But even when comparing all the best graduates from the past ten or even twenty years of competitions, your particular talent and design sensibility still stands out as genuinely top-tier and exceptional.
So based on that assessment, I firmly believe you're destined to become one of those rare individuals who will make significant waves and lasting impact in the game industry."
Rachel then deliberately paused to give Evan a moment to fully process and absorb what she had just said, before she continued:
"You game producers and developers invest your time and resources into creating games. We media professionals invest our attention and coverage into identifying and promoting influential figures who will shape the industry. And you, Evan, represent a promising stock that I personally am extremely optimistic about for the future."
Evan lowered his head in thoughtful consideration for a long moment, then looked back up and flashed a genuine, warm smile at Rachel.
"I understand your perspective completely now. Ms. Waters, please feel free to ask me anything you'd like to know."