"Aiko, our game has terrible reviews! So many people are leaving us negative feedback!"
Early in the morning, Kanemi and Oto-chan, unusually not sleeping in, had woken up early and were looking at the latest sales numbers for Dead Cells on their computers.
From the sales data, Dead Cells seemed to be doing quite well. By the time the night passed and morning came, over 30,000 players had already purchased it.
This was likely due to the combined fame of the three girls and the boost from Takayuki's side account.
However, before Kanemi could feel good about the sales numbers, she noticed that the general reviews of the game were, to put it bluntly, terrible.
In just the early hours of the morning, dozens of people had quickly left feedback on the game.
And nearly 90% of them were complaining that the game was far too difficult, making it incredibly frustrating to play.
As expected, these people gave the game a big thumbs-down. They felt like a game deliberately designed with such high difficulty should never have been made. It made no sense for a game to be this punishing.
...
...
They seriously suspected that the developer must have been drunk when they adjusted the game's difficulty.
It wasn't just the difficulty—there were also very few ways to replenish health. Even if the difficulty were lowered, the constant damage from small monsters was still overwhelming.
By morning, the game's reviews had flooded with negative feedback.
This made Kanemi a bit anxious. She quickly went to find Oto-chan, only to find that Oto-chan was also frowning, reading the reviews in her room. Both of them were at a loss for what to do, and only then did they remember to look for Aiko.
Aiko seemed to have completely relaxed after the game development, partly because Takayuki had persuaded her to take a break.
After finishing the game, the three girls had celebrated by eating out at multiple places last night.
When they came back, Aiko had just collapsed on her bed without even changing her clothes and slept until now, only to be woken up by Oto-chan and Kanemi.
"Negative reviews? What negative reviews?" Aiko, still groggy, didn't understand what was going on.
"It looks like our game isn't popular. A lot of people are leaving us bad reviews. What should we do about this?"
Kanemi muttered to herself after speaking: "I just feel like the difficulty should be lowered. This level of difficulty is too much for the players."
Aiko slowly woke up, then immediately got out of bed and rushed to her computer to check the data.
At this moment, Aiko still felt a bit of a headache, realizing that she had overdone it celebrating yesterday. She had relaxed a bit too much.
But that didn't stop her from checking the current game reviews.
Just like Kanemi and the others, she first checked the sales numbers. Seeing this, Aiko felt a bit more at ease. The sales were much better than she had expected.
If there were no surprises, the game's first-day sales might even reach 50,000 or 60,000 units.
When their last game sold 100,000 copies, it took a long time. But this game achieved impressive numbers in such a short amount of time—it was definitely a positive sign.
Then, following Kanemi's and Oto-chan's advice, Aiko checked the review section, and her brows quickly furrowed.
"These reviews... they're much worse than I imagined."
"Not just worse, they're really bad!" Kanemi said, a bit agitated.
"If this keeps up, our reputation might be ruined."
Aiko seemed a bit hesitant, but she shook her head and said, "We should maintain the current status. We shouldn't adjust the difficulty."
"Huh? If we don't adjust the difficulty, won't even more people give us bad reviews?" Kanemi asked.
Aiko replied, "This was something Takayuki-sensei specifically emphasized. The game's difficulty is one of its unique features. Since it's a feature, we shouldn't change it easily."
"But..."
"No buts. I honestly think this level of difficulty is appropriate, and it's not just because Takayuki-sensei said so."
After thinking for a moment, Oto-chan said, "Should we call Takayuki-sensei to get his opinion?"
Aiko shook her head. "We can't bother him too much. He's already helped us so much. If we keep asking him for advice on everything, it means we haven't grown at all."
Kanemi, feeling anxious, said, "But if we just leave it like this..."
Aiko interrupted her, pointing at the screen. "This is just the beginning. These reviews don't mean anything yet. Think about it—how long do you think these people have been playing the game? You've all played Dead Cells too. You know that it takes at least ten hours to really feel the charm of the game."
Oto-chan said, "So, you mean we should wait and see? See what the reviews are like later?"
Aiko hesitated for a moment, then nodded firmly. "Yes, I think we should observe for now, and then decide if we want to consult Takayuki-sensei. We can't rush to him with every small issue. It doesn't feel right."
Since Aiko had said so, Kanemi and Oto-chan no longer insisted.
After all, according to their agreement, this game was going to be led by Aiko, and she had the right to decide the direction of the game's future development.
In the morning, more and more people were waking up from their sleep—some were office workers, some were students, and some were unemployed.
As they opened their computers, many of them naturally noticed Dead Cells, the new indie game that had just been released.
The creator of this indie game was still very well-known: 'Nintendo's World Domination,' the so-called pioneer of indie games, along with Triangular Game Studio, which had a modest reputation in the indie game circle.
Triangular Game Studio was founded by three beautiful female university students, and they had even had an interview about it, which earned them a surge of popularity.
One well-known entity and one moderately famous entity joining forces—this game was definitely something to look forward to.
However, as soon as they bought the game and entered it, they immediately felt that they might have been misled.
The game's difficulty was frighteningly high.
In just half an hour, over 80% of the players had quit.
Most of them quickly opted for refunds.
Now, the refund process on the Battle.net platform was quite easy. Players could easily request a refund as long as their playtime didn't exceed two hours.
Apart from the 80% who quit right away, the remaining 20% were the players who were still playing but barely enduring. Not many of them lasted long either.