newbobooks Chapter 182 Happy Farm
Chapter 182 Happy Farm
The core mechanism of Happy Farm is actually very simple: cultivate a plot of land, plant seeds, water and fertilize, and wait for the harvest. But it is this mechanism that once made countless people set alarms in the middle of the night to harvest their crops, and even gave rise to the new social verb "stealing vegetables".
"Brother Zhou," Lu Ran looked up, "can you believe this game can get users up at 3 a.m.?"
Zhou Mingzhe peeked out from under the pile of code, adjusted his glasses, and said, "Three in the morning? Aren't you still awake?"
"I'm talking about ordinary people at 3 a.m., not you programmers."
"That's impossible. According to the research conducted by the Ugly Kingdom on the Chinese people, three o'clock at night is when people are sleeping the best. It's impossible for them to get up because of a game."
"Shall we make a bet?"
"What are we betting on?"
"Let's bet... um... I haven't thought it through yet, but let's bet for now." Lu Ran smiled meaningfully. "I'll send you the demo now, you can play a couple of rounds and try it out."
Five minutes later.
Zhou Mingzhe was engrossed in his phone, having a great time.
Zhou Mingzhe is currently only in the beginner tutorial, and he finds it quite interesting just to familiarize himself with the tutorial. If his friends are all playing it and the feature of stealing vegetables is added, Lu Ran believes that they will value the virtual vegetables even more than the real vegetables.
His dish will be ready in three minutes.
But the other side's plot of land—that's the test account "Neighbor Wang" assigned by the system—is about to be stolen in two minutes.
"This 'vegetable stealing' mechanism..." Zhou Mingzhe muttered, "Isn't it a bit too unethical? I work so hard to grow these vegetables, and I have to guard against others stealing them?"
"That's exactly right, being shameless." Lu Ran leaned closer. "Look, don't you really want to stake out Old Wang's vegetables right now?"
Although Zhou Mingzhe was reluctant to admit it, he still nodded and said, "...a little."
"Would you also stake out the location to harvest your own crops in order to prevent them from being stolen?"
"meeting."
"Would you then set your harvest time for 3 AM?"
Zhou Mingzhe's lips twitched: "...Possibly. Mainly because I usually finish harvesting the vegetables before going to sleep at three o'clock."
Lu Ran patted him on the shoulder: "Congratulations, Brother Zhou, you've grasped the essence of this game. What we need to do next is to promote this essence to ten million TUTU users."
Looking at the simple menu on the screen, Zhou Mingzhe suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
He recalled his previous entrepreneurial project.
It was a serious, efficient mobile office software with absolutely no entertainment features.
Three months after its launch, the daily active users were less than two thousand.
And this thing in front of him... this vegetable-growing gadget actually made this senior programmer want to set an alarm clock in the middle of the night.
At that moment, he seemed to understand the secret to software survival.
"Lu Ran," he looked up, his expression complex, "have you considered that this thing might cause social problems?"
"for example?"
"For example, employees slacking off during work hours to steal virtual crops, or students staying up late setting alarms to harvest virtual crops..."
Lu Ran thought about it and realized that Zhou Mingzhe's consideration did make some sense; he had overlooked it before.
"You're right." He nodded. "So we need to add a sentence to the product description: Moderate gaming is good for the brain, excessive gaming is harmful to health. Manage your time wisely and enjoy a healthy life."
Zhou Mingzhe: "...Do you think users will watch it?"
"No," Lu Ran answered honestly, "but we can write it down, at least to distance ourselves from it."
"Don't cigarette packs all say that smoking is harmful to your health? That's called a disclaimer."
...
Three days later, Happy Farm was officially launched on TUTU.
Because the program for "Happy Farm" is simpler, Lu Ran decided to skip the testing period and go straight to the game.
This time, Happy Farm didn't have any massive advertising campaigns or celebrity endorsements; it only had an inconspicuous entrance.
At the bottom of the TUTU homepage, a small radish icon has been added to the "Discover" menu. However, this radish icon is so distinctive that it is hard to miss.
TUTU has nearly 10 million daily active users, and nearly a million people discovered Happy Farm on the same day, and almost all of them started playing it.
As a social networking app, TUTU users already have many friends. When they discover that they can steal their friends' crops, they quickly steal them when their friends are not paying attention.
At the same time, there is an extremely strong feeling of pleasure.
No wonder many people in society like to steal things when they have nothing to do.
"Mr. Lu!" The operations engineer called at 2 a.m., his voice almost breaking with anxiety. "The peak traffic exceeded expectations by 300%! We added three more servers, but we're still struggling to keep up!"
Lu Ran was woken up by the phone call. He was about to get angry, but when he saw that it was one of his employees still working, he couldn't get angry.
All he could do was give instructions: "Don't panic, keep adding. If the budget isn't enough, just talk to Zhou Mingzhe; I'll give him the authority."
"But..." the maintenance guy's voice was filled with despair, "It's 2 AM! How can there still be so many people online at 2 AM?!"
Lu Ran glanced at the time: 2:17 AM.
He opened TUTU and clicked into the official circle of "Happy Farm".
The pinned post prominently displayed: "[Midnight Farming Compilation Thread—Show Off Your Night Owl Achievements!]"
The number of comments below has exceeded 10,000:
"My alarm went off at 1:50, so I got up and stole some eggplants from Old Wang next door. Feeling great!"
"I just finished harvesting my own strawberries, and then I went on to steal from everyone I could from my friend list. Now I feel incredibly refreshed!"
"You're not alone upstairs! I've discovered that stealing crops from other players' farms is even more fun than harvesting your own!"
"300 people on my friends list are already playing it. I'm having a blast tonight."
Lu Ran found it amusing. He planned to finish collecting his vegetables and then go to sleep.
When he opened his farm, he found that half of the vegetables had been stolen, including some that Zhou Mingzhe had just stolen.
Lu Ran felt much less sleepy, so he opened his friends list and frantically browsed through his friends' farms before finally falling asleep contentedly.
...