Chapter One: Graduation (or Perhaps Unemployment)

Yin Jian sat on the last subway train of midnight. His eyes were vacant, staring up at the ceiling.

Today marked the third day since his graduation—and also his third day of unemployment.

He was living in the interstellar era, a time when humanity had long since accomplished the grand feat of immigrating throughout the universe. In such an age, any profession closely linked to the internet was said to be as lucrative as filling sacks with money.

As a transmigrant from Earth, Yin Jian had mapped out his future by the age of six: he would become a game operations specialist.

This plan had proceeded smoothly all through his university years. Yet, the very job he once considered a golden ticket had now become impossible to attain—he had scoured the entire Xiahua Star Domain, but not a single listed game company was willing to hire him.

"Sorry, we're looking for candidates with at least three years of experience. If you want to join our company, you should gain experience elsewhere for three years and then reapply for our assessment."

"A recent graduate? If you can pay a monthly training fee of one thousand cosmic credits, we can arrange a three-month internship for you."

"Free games? The future market trend? Are you kidding? Who will support the company if everything is free? If you're out of your mind, don't come here."

The rejections were endless.

Yin Jian found it absurd. What on earth was wrong with this society? Why was there such open hostility toward graduates? When would graduates finally have their day?

"It's ridiculous that a top university graduate like me can't find a job," he sighed. When he'd first arrived in this world, he was elated to discover that all games were pay-to-play—there was neither piracy nor free games. He thought his era in gaming had finally arrived.

After all, anyone who'd played TX games knew that "free" was always the most expensive.

Yet, just as he was brimming with ambition and ready to make his mark, society dealt him a harsh slap in the face.

Not a single company wanted him.

Unemployed the moment he graduated.

"Reality is nothing like a novel—it's brutally unforgiving."

Yin Jian wore a bitter expression. Back in school, he had been insufferably arrogant. Now, look at him.

"If my college classmates find out, they'll mock me to death behind my back."

As he agonized over what to do next, a 'ding!' suddenly sounded in his mind.

It wasn't the arrival of some golden cheat code—it was the neural AI implanted at birth, signaling an incoming message.

Yin Jian focused his thoughts and opened the message. It was a notification from someone he had marked as a priority.

The sender was his university class monitor, a beautiful girl named Yu Jia.

He hadn’t set her as a priority contact because he was a creep, of course.

The reason was simple: whenever the teachers had important news, they always notified the class monitor first, who then relayed it to the students. Yin Jian didn't want to miss out on any updates, so he set her as a priority.

[My First Job!!!]

As soon as he saw the start of her post, Yin Jian’s interest was piqued.

He’d always suspected that the class monitor came from an unusual background, so he was curious about what kind of job she had found.

"Qiyou Personal Game Platform Operations Specialist?"

Yin Jian frowned and searched the net, quickly finding details about the Qiyou Personal Game Platform.

It was a platform where individual game creators could publish standalone games.

The homepage featured a banner for this month's hottest titles:

The King of Enigma
Rogue Master: The Calamity
Your Inducing Game

After pausing on the game titles, his attention was drawn to a line of small text in the upper right corner of the platform.

[Anyone Can Become a Game Designer!]
[Start Earning a Million a Year Now!]

He clicked, and was redirected to a software called [Game Creation Assistant].

There, he saw a series of straightforward, even crude, game creation tutorials:

Define gameplay → Choose a theme → Purchase assets → One-click synthesis → Test the game → Publish the game → Sign a contract → Earn a million a year

Staring at this simple, brute-force process, Yin Jian was momentarily stunned.

Although he had studied game operations, after living in this era for so long, he knew a thing or two about how games were made nowadays.

It was extremely hardcore!

They would directly transform entire planets into game worlds.

No matter how realistic digital effects became, they could never compete with reality itself.

Because of this, the process of game creation had become so hardcore that Yin Jian was astonished to see something so simple.

Curious, he did more research and finally understood.

There were now two types of games in this era.

High-end games used real planets or even entire star systems for development, while low-end ones, much like back on Earth, were still programmed virtually.

Virtual games could never achieve complete realism, and so had been abandoned by the times. Nowadays, any major game company would take over a planet or a swath of a star system to create their games.

"Still, despite the changing times, there’s always a market for virtual games."

After digesting all the information, Yin Jian came to this conclusion.

After all, if there was no profit, platforms like Qiyou wouldn’t exist.

His eyes brightened with a daring idea.

Since the process of making virtual games had become so streamlined, couldn’t he just do it himself?

Previously, his plan was to enter a big company as an operations specialist. But even if he succeeded, he’d still be just another wage slave—far less satisfying than making his own games.

And the money-making power of free-to-play games was plain for all to see.

Even if virtual games didn’t have as large a market as reality-based games, in the interstellar era, even a small share was enough for him to thrive.

With this in mind, Yin Jian made up his mind.

To hell with being an operations specialist!

A game designer—that was the true path for a real man!

He glanced at the advertisements flashing by outside the subway window and calmed his excitement.

There was no need to rush. First, he needed to understand the industry, and once home, decide what kind of game would earn him his first fortune.

All those years studying game operations had not been wasted.

He knew well enough that, unlike in novels where the protagonist casually released a game and it instantly exploded in popularity, reality was never that kind.

If you didn’t do any market research and just blindly published a game that didn’t fit current trends, no matter how brilliant, it would likely flop.

Of course, god-tier games that could set the market’s direction were another matter entirely.

After searching online for a while, Yin Jian found the official Qiyou forum.

Most of the active users there were game designers; only a small fraction were players.

He clicked into the forum and was greeted by three stickied posts, highlighted in bold red:

【A Must-Read for Newcomers!!!】
Standalone Games Are a Dead End!
【Become a Millionaire Creator!】
You’ll Only Succeed After Making a Million Standalone Games—Tread Carefully!
【Three Years as an Independent Game Designer】
Please, kind souls, spare me a meal—I haven’t eaten in three days.
???

P.S.: This is my first time writing a book. Please go easy on me—both praise and criticism are hard to bear. Whimper, whimper~