All Novel Full Chapter 1225
Chapter 1225: Chapter 1112 [Space city]_1 Chapter 1225: Chapter 1112 [Space city]_1 Cloud Dream attached a high importance to this email.
Jerome took the initiative, organizing the negotiations, and the location of the negotiations…
This may sound a little preposterous, but it happened in the virtual world.
On the surface, Persians nationwide had imposed a strict ban on Cloud Dream’s products.
Not to mention the Mirage Consoles, even [Bafang] was not allowed to enter, and only [Heavenly Craft] and [Journey], the two most simple prosthetic products, could be imported.
So theoretically, even if there were some privately stashed Mirage consoles, they should only be covertly used.
The Persian’s wariness against the virtual world was even stronger than that of America.
——With the flourishing smuggling industry in America, the number of virtual world users had already exceeded ten million, completely unregulated.
But in Persia, there was brutal crackdown!
The smuggling and illegal sale of banned goods, once caught, would immediately result in fines and imprisonment.
Against such a background, their Ministry of Commerce actually blatantly violated the law and chose to negotiate in the virtual world, in broad daylight.
This is astonishingly outrageous.
However, for Cloud Dream, this was undeniably good news.
Because this could prove: they were indeed extremely anxious and did not even want to wait for the time it would take to travel by airplane.
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Jerome, with his team, started the first round of negotiations in high spirits.
In the game of staking claims on the world map that was being played, only Persia and America had forbidden Cloud Dream to step foot in their territory.
Now with the opportunity to once again “expand their territory” right before his eyes, Jerome couldn’t help but feel a bit excited.
However, the attitude displayed in the meeting by the other party was drastically different from their previous actions.
By 3 pm, Lincoln had received a brief meeting record, and in the record, he saw the absurdly harsh demands from the other side:
First: Virtual reality games of Cloud Dream to be sold in Persia, need to pass a review before they can be sold.
Second: To create [Virtual Babylon], as an online public world for Persian users, and to limit Persian users’ access to other public maps.
Third: All Persian users, when logging into the virtual world, must wear “compliant” clothing.
Fourth: The Mirage Consoles sold by Cloud Dream in Persia, must be produced domestically in Persia.
Fifth: Cloud Dream can pay the payable taxes using mechs as payment, and can enjoy certain tax benefits.
…
A good sixteen demands were presented.
Lincoln abandoned the record after only reading half of it.
Is this the attitude for attracting investments?
It is totally a negotiation!
First, throw out a bunch of demands, then negotiate and make concessions on both sides until a consensus is reached.
In the past, upon seeing these demands, Lincoln would immediately have asked them to leave.
But now, he did not feel angry at all.
Because the issue of mech mentioned in their conditions made him realize something.
He asked Mavis to help summarize the orders received by [Titan Manufacturing] so far, and marked them on the world map in image form.
By looking at it this way, an interesting fact could be discovered:
In the Middle Eastern Region, except for Persia, nearly all the surrounding countries had placed orders with [Titan Manufacturing].
Even those who had not placed orders before, had all placed orders after the Kinshasa Street Mech Battles, mostly preferring the middle-sized models.
The smaller the mech model, the cheaper the price, so this choice was not surprising.
But for Persia, it was the only exception.
It was not that they did not want to order; they simply cannot do so.
——Persia was not within the operating range of [Titan Manufacturing].
Theoretically, America was not within the range either.
But because the user base there was so large and the players’ demand for “mech peripherals” was extremely high, Lincoln couldn’t disappoint the users, right?
So he reluctantly agreed.
However, this only applies to veteran players.
Non-Cloud Dream users shouldn’t even entertain the thought, while new users must accumulate some online time and brush up some achievements in order to be eligible for purchase.
— That one from the American Army Department doesn’t count, as it is universally acknowledged that it’s their own “self-developed” model.
After seeing this data map, Lincoln generally understood what was happening:
Everyone has it, especially the neighbors around him, but he doesn’t have it himself?
How could that be?!
Lincoln nodded in understanding, resolving the question in his mind.
So—
Just let Jerome proceed with the negotiations slowly.
Whoever is in a hurry will have to give in.
Certainly, the ultimate goal of the negotiation is still to get Mirage to their users.
As long as that is achieved, a bit of harmless concession is not unacceptable.
Moreover, compared to negotiation, there is another more troublesome issue regarding spreading Mirage throughout Persia on a large scale:
How to make Mirage affordable even for those who are less affluent?
Persia boasts a large population, but …
the disparity between rich and poor is also considerable.
In reality, the number of users who can afford Mirage consoles are likely much less when compared to those in East Asia.
This is not just a problem in Persia.
There are poor people everywhere.
Even in Daxia, America, and the European Union, it’s a stretch to say that every household is willing to buy.
Therefore, it’s time to play that move—
[Installment payment]
Overspending in advance can hardly be considered a good thing.
Coupled with the frequent release of Cloud Dream Games, even if users were to buy every other game, it still adds up to a substantial amount of expenditure.
So Lincoln has refrained from promoting this option until now.
However, the value that the virtual world can bring to users now far outweighs the hardware costs that users have to bear—
Global internet connection, famous modern cities and tourist cities around the world, unparalleled natural scenery, magnificent amusement parks, massive libraries, ecological animal protection zones, real-time translation, gaining friends from around the globe…
There are just so many mature and free content.
It isn’t claiming too much to say that the purchase is well worth what is paid, to a profitable extent!
Therefore…
It’s a win-win!
*
On the same afternoon, the voting on the name for the space station also moved to its final stage.
The most time-consuming was the first step— collecting names suggested by players.
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The following verification process was actually quite simple: choose the 100 most popular names submitted by the players, weed out the ones that are illegal, unconventional, or immoral.
The remaining 73 are the final names for the vote.
The final voting, from yesterday at 9am to today at 5pm, strictly adhered to Cloud Dream’s working hours.
For online voting, 34 hours fully covers users across all time zones and is more than enough.
After all, actual voting only requires a few clicks.
Even if to go through all 73 options, it wouldn’t take more than three minutes.
Indeed, it turned out just as expected.
By yesterday afternoon, there had already been a gap between the different options.
By the morning, when the news about the mechs broke out, the top three had pulled a gap from the others which was practically insurmountable.
Those prank names like “Dumbbell”, “Muscular Man”, “AAA”, “KKK”, “Metropolis Bathhouse Branch 36” …
quickly trailed behind serious names after the official start of the voting.
Clearly, although pranks can easily spark interest, when real users begin voting, they remain rational.
After all, no one wants to live on a Space Station named “Public Bathhouse”.
The names that really stood out were those that were serious and positive: “Outpost”, “Enlightenment”, “Star Ocean”, “Navigator”, “Sky City”, “Conqueror”, “Space Fort”…
and so on.
By now, the top three names seemed to be somewhat ordinary:
Third place: [Hope Space Station]
Second place: [Ark]
First place: [Space City]
This ranking remained till the end of the voting.