Chapter 11: Getting Servers

Mike's power had detected a huge increase in the quality of his game. Based on his power, the potential profit he could gain would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars if he just marketed his game right. All of that doesn't matter because, for some unknown reason, he suddenly gained tens of thousands of dollars.

"I'm a millionaire!"

What he said was the truth. Converting it into pesos would turn him into a millionaire. His worries about his other expenses were gone because somehow, just before a week had passed, Idle Power had netted him that much without any advertisement. It was like people suddenly got possessed and threw their money at him.

If no one donated to him, he would gain a huge boost in his skills, but that doesn't really matter. The people had decided they liked his game so much they threw their money at his face. He couldn't even complain, because more money meant he could afford everything he needed for his future plans. If it was a one-time thing, then he would be thankful, but the problem was it kept happening. Every single day they kept donating to him, and his power kept nerfing what he should have gotten as a skill improvement.

It was a shame. He didn't want this kind of profit right now.

'Really, they shouldn't throw such an amount of money at me. I'm fine if they donate at least a dollar every day. Why are they giving me thousands!?' He grumbled internally.

If any of his countrymen heard his thoughts, they would surely beat him up. Just who the hell does he think he is to complain about getting a lot of money?

"Whatever, it's useful. I shouldn't complain so much..." Even as he said that, he felt sad.

He wanted more skill improvements. The more his skills improved, the faster he could finish his games. He still has a lot of games he wanted to create, and he didn't want to be stuck in just these two games.

"Okay, I don't really want to do this, but it seems like I'll have to go along with that path."

There is only one way for him to counteract the diminished effects of his power, and that is to lose a profit from his game. Actual financial loss would act as a multiplier to the skills he used on the product that reduced his money. To trigger this effect, he has to use what he earned from his product and then use it only for the product that earned him that money in the first place.

For example, his product this time was the game Idle Power. Whatever he earned from Idle Power, he had to use it to further enhance that game. His power wouldn't recognize his usage of money if it doesn't relate to the product that earned him that money. It meant if he wanted the effects of his power to be multiplied, he couldn't use what he earned from Idle Power to CGA. If he used what he earned for his self-indulgence, then his power still wouldn't recognize it. Only money he lost from the maintenance, update, or anything related to the game that earned him that money would trigger the multiplier effect of his power, so long as the money he lost was greater in value than the actual profits he got.

"But how can I spend money for this game? All of the assets in that game are entirely made by my own hand. I don't rent anything. My power doesn't count my electricity bills as part of my expenses for Idle Power's development, so it doesn't really matter if I use my powers there." He thought about it for a moment before an idea emerged from his mind. "Right, what if I just rent a server online?"

There were many server providers on the internet, and some of them were so reliable that many well-known games used their services for their games. There were cloud server providers and dedicated server hosters on the internet. With just a single search on Woogle, he would immediately find what he was looking for.

"Unlike Cute Girls Academy, Idle Power only needs a simple server. The players have been clamoring about PVP and displaying high scores, so I think I can leave the hardware part to someone else."

The only reason he doesn't pick this option on CGA is because he doesn't have money, his plans for CGA are larger than Idle Power, and he wants to have full control of CGA's progress, even the hardware part of its planned server. He thought that if he owned the server racks for it, he wouldn't have to pay the rent for it, and he would also gain improvements for the hardware stuff if he was the one maintaining the physical server itself, as his power considered that part of the process when marketing his product. Idle Power was simple enough that he felt like he wouldn't need a physical server for it. Just renting one would be enough, and it was cheaper, and it would give him the experience to maintain a server on the software part of it.

He was just thinking of calling one when his ringtone rang. He furrowed his brow, a bit startled, before looking at the caller.

"Elmer?"

Curious, he accepted the call with furrowed brows.

["Bro! I have good news for you!"]

"... What is it?" He doesn't know why, but he has a bad feeling.

["You want to put a high score display in your game, right? Don't worry, bro, I already got your back! I reached out to my friend and managed to secure you a server. You don't need to think about the hardware stuff. We'll take care of all of that!"]

"Huh... wait, what? What do you mean!?"

["Well, it's not entirely free, but you only need to pay a monthly fee of 5k for its maintenance. The others we can do ourselves!"]

What he was hearing was quite impossible. He could own an entire dedicated server for a monthly fee of five thousand pesos. That was ten times cheaper than renting servers online.

"No way, I have to pay for it!"

Having recovered his wits, Mike immediately countered.

'Even if Elmer's my friend, I won't let him stop me from spending my money!'

["What are you talking about? Didn't you say you're in a critical moment of your development?"] He heard Elmer fake a cough in confusion. ["Anyway, if you are feeling guilty, don't be. This is what a friend should do!"]

"But I don't need it. Just tell me the full price, and I'll pay it!"

["No, there is no need. Don't worry about it."]

"Elmer, bro, I am serious. I have a lot of money right now, and I don't want to take it for free!" He gritted his teeth, feeling a bit tired with this back and forth.

["If you have a lot of money, you should use it for yourself."] He wanted to retort but stopped when Elmer spoke again after a brief pause. ["But, if you really insist, we can hang out again next week. It's been so long, and you haven't been coming to our gatherings for years now. Look, you can pay me back by treating us. Cath also misses you, you know?"]

He raised a finger, wanting to say something more, when he stopped, realizing that he actually couldn't retort to that. Since he became a working adult, he could barely find the free time to spend time with his friends. The occasional times he did were so rare they forgot about it.

'It seems like I have to use that card then...'

He doesn't want to say it, as he feels like he is bragging, but it can't be helped.

"Elmer, I have a million in my name, and you know me. I only want the best if it comes to my games. You know what? I'll go there and check the server myself."

["Wha... what!?"]

Now, he wouldn't admit it, but he felt rather satisfied having surprised his friend.

____________________

Elmer always believed his friend was in the red. He knew how Mike acts. That guy, if he could afford it, wouldn't be stingy and would just go all the way for it. He still recalled the time when he was still a student. When they were celebrating him passing a school year, he was the one who hosted them with a feast he personally saved up for in his wallet, even though his parents could have just done it themselves. His only excuse was because he doesn't want to disappoint others. He felt that if he didn't do his best, it would feel like he wasn't taking the others seriously.

Talking about him in a good way, he could be said to be quite the polite gentleman to the others. Explaining him in a bad way, he was way too conscious about the opinions of others.

And that's just Mike. Because for Mike himself, he always put himself in the shoes of the others and then always thought, "what would I like to see in this particular thing?" It wasn't limited to games. It was the core personality of this impossible guy.

So when it came to games, he always put himself in the consumer's shoes instead of the developer's. It was because Mike was primarily a consumer of game products rather than a developer. He was a dreamer, and his personality of always using the best for any occasion made it quite troublesome for himself.

He thought Mike had moved on from that after being clobbered by the struggles of working life. He didn't expect the guy would just return with a lot more fervor than ever. Of course, he wanted to support him because he saw the quality of the game.

He doesn't know why the game only had a single microtransaction on it. He assumed the game wasn't making a lot of money right now because of it. He didn't expect his assumption to be completely far off. Instead of being in the red, Mike is strapped for cash!

To hear his friend, who couldn't even afford a new phone for himself, now having a million made him feel surreal. There was happiness, but at the same time it felt a bit weird hearing his friend now having all the cash he could wish for. If Mike lived frugally, he could essentially live his life without working for decades. A million is not a joke after all!

It also was surprising because, based on what Mike said to convince him, the guy got it through his game. He just checked and saw the platform displaying Idle Power as having 1M+ downloads in it. Woogle Platform took some cuts, and there were also taxes before the money got into Mike's hands. With those facts in mind, imagine just how much people paid for that one-buck package—at least five percent of the entire player base.

Elmer knew that the number written in the downloaded section doesn't mean it had the same active players. So this further decreased the number of actual players playing it. Not every player would pay even if it cost a literal dollar. Most players would choose to play for free if they could help it. That's why games riddled with ads could still sustain themselves for several months, because a lot of players surprisingly preferred choosing to waste more of their time than spending even a single cent on a game.

He saw the potential in the game, but he expected it would take months before it got popular. He wondered just how Mike did it.

'And now he's coming here...'

Days after their talk, Elmer was now standing in front of his college friend's startup company, waiting for Mike to arrive. Besides him was his friend, a guy who had a full, trimmed beard around his chin, rugged features, and a robust build dressed in business casual.

This guy is Bados Camones. He's the friend he made at the college he attended, and they hit it off so well that they were in contact on every occasion they had time. Bados was just done working abroad and had saved up enough money to build his own. He decided to build a data center and web hosting company due to the increasing demand it has in this country. For him, he felt like this business would be lucrative so long as he didn't fumble too hard.

"Still, I'm surprised that my first customer will be the guy you're always talking about, Michael, right?"

"Yeah. He's a cool dude. He's the one who inspired me to pursue compsci. He's really passionate about games like me."

"Is that so? I can't wait to see him!"

Elmer smiled confidently. He would admit he had been hyping up Mike with some of his friends, but Mike truly had the drive to do what he wanted. It was just determination alone that wouldn't feed him. If he still had parents, or he had any caring relatives who would tuition his school life, then he could have finished his course and applied for high-paying jobs, but in the end he dropped out because his parents were dead, and the beneficiaries for their passing were so hard to get due to the inflexibility of the people handling it. It's quite normal in this country. He had to think of how he could survive for the day before he even thought of anything like that.

When he was at school, Mike wasn't that smart, but he made up for it through his own hard work. He kept acing his exam and keeping up with the top scorers because he was diligent with his hobbies. At the same time, he doesn't neglect spending time on his hobbies whenever he has the spare time. It's the type of drive that was abnormal for a normal teenager, and even as an adult, that drive was still uncommon to an average person.

With all of that, it wasn't that weird that he honestly got amazed at the guy. He wanted to be like him. So he couldn't help but mention him in passing whenever he ran out of any interesting topics for himself.

After a lull in their conversation, they saw a white taxi stopping just a few meters from them. From there, Elmer's face lit up as he saw the familiar face of his friend emerging from the door in a new set of clothes. He noticed that Mike had taken the time to make himself look neat and shaved the usual beard that grew along with his wild, unkempt hair, which now looked neatly styled and trimmed to look casually stylish.

"Uy, Mike!"

"Elmer!"

Both of them bumped fists and then hugged together with a pat on their backs. After that, Elmer immediately introduced his other friend to Mike.

"Mike, this is my friend, Bados. He owns the BU Company. Bados, this is my friend Michael. He usually prefers to be called Mike."

"Nice to meet you, Michael."

"Just call me Mike, and it's also nice to meet you, Bados."

The two guys shook hands with smiles on their faces. After a while, they immediately go straight to their business.

"So you need a dedicated server?"

"Yeah, it's for my game."

"I see. Do you want the high-end one or the low-end one?

"I want the best you can rent me for a hundred K."

Bados thought about it for a moment.

"Is that fine? I take a look at your game, and it seems like it doesn't need a large server for it. I think even a low-end one will suffice if you only want to host players in PvP or display high scores."

"I still want my server to have the best quality. I can't let my players experience delays in their game."

Seeing his resolute expression, Bados glanced at Elmer, and after a nod, he finally relented.

"Okay, if that's what you want. Come on, let's go inside, and I'll show you our servers."

With that, they entered his company building.

____________________

Despite being a startup, the company looked big in Mike's eyes. This was the first time he saw a data server company. The only things he knew were call center companies and telecommunication companies. Bados talked about it, and he learned that in this day, most companies used third-party data server companies for their own server rooms and databases. Surprisingly, he said that companies found it cheaper than making their own technical team for it. Companies only do the software side while they take care of the hardware.

He asked about it and learned more about how data storage, domains, and the like actually worked. Bados, being a good friend, also suggested that if he wanted to only make high score displays on his game, he should just choose to rent a cloud server. At least for that kind of server, he could easily achieve what he wanted, and it was also cheap.

'Well... Right. I barely know anything about making a server in a game. All of my knowledge came from the internet.'

Even with that thought, he was still going to stick with his decision.

"So what do you think?"

"I still want a high-end dedicated server."

Bados stared at him for a while before shrugging his shoulders.

"Okay, it seems like your mind is already made up. Your budget is just right. We only have a few high-end ones, but renting it costs 95k monthly."

"Yeah, I'm fine with it." An idea came to Mike after he said that. "Actually, do you also sell data storage and server racks here? I might have to buy one myself..."

"... What are you buying one for?" It's Elmer who now asks, confused at the sudden request.

"Well, you know, maybe I might just make my own dedicated servers when I get enough money." Mike just shrugged as he said that, though the two of them looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "What?" Mike noticed their gaze and felt confused.

"... Well, it's good to have confidence." Bados leaves it at that with an amused smirk.

Elmer was concerned about his friend but decided not to ask about it, as he trusted Mike enough to know better. He thinks that Mike was simply curious because of his chosen profession, and he might also have gotten an urge to burn some money because he had a million now. He reasoned within his mind that it was quite normal for people to spend when they have a lot of money.

"Still, what do you need such a high-end server for?" Elmer just couldn't understand that part, so he blurted that out.

He trusted his friend, but at the same time he knew just how excessive he was. He doesn't need such a high-end one for that kind of thing. High-end servers were usually used for large online MMOs or other games that used a lot of virtual resources. Idle Power was an amazing game, but that doesn't mean it's resource-intensive compared to those other types of games.

"Well... let's just say I'm planning something big with my game." He responded with a smile.

Elmer looked at him for a moment before rolling his eyes, thinking the guy was only acting cool to mess with him. He doesn't know Mike actually meant it. He has a plan.

With his trip here and talking to Bados, someone who has experience with dealing with server hosting, he learned that he couldn't just make a server that could host everyone globally. It might be alright for Idle Power, but if it came to CGA, there would be many problems, like the connectivity issue. He was enlightened. Now he knew that he couldn't just make a server room in his house or anywhere else in his city and hope anyone could play smoothly. He had to make different servers globally just to make their game experience smoother.

He's just a lone guy. He was still a bit confident if he was near his planned server room because he expected his skills to improve, which would enable him not just to know about how server storage works, but also to make one of his own. He thought he could just make one in the backyard and let it do all of the heavy lifting so players could enjoy his game online. That was a naive thought. What he needed is an entire group, and not just one, but multiple groups or data center providers around the world if he wants to achieve that kind of zero-ping game.

That will be very expensive!

'That doesn't mean I will give up on it!'

He will still buy a server rack for it. A skill for both maintaining and knowing every how-to of the hardware part of the computer was a good knowledge to have. He planned to make a private server for CGA first and then accumulate a lot of improvements from it before making an entire dedicated server for it.

'It might take long, but I think I will have my own company at that time!'

He could already imagine it. His revenue on Idle Power has given him a lot of money. Every day, it kept rising, and those who bought the supporter package were more than a hundred thousand. In fact, it was approaching half a million just by those who purchased the only microtransaction in that game. This doesn't include what he was earning from donations too.

'I don't have any hopes of getting any improvement from Idle Power. I might as well just give it the best server and occasionally update it.'

This trip was to ensure that he could salvage some improvements from Idle Power, but he wasn't optimistic about it. The game kept earning him money even without any ads for it.

His eyes are now settled on Cute Girls Academy. That game, even when people occasionally threw donations at him, was still manageable enough that he was still gaining significant boosts to his skills. If he maintained a server on his own and used that as the server for CGA, even if the server's performance was bad, it would still be worth it for him.

'I need improvements to make my dreams come true!'

It's still not enough. All of the talent he accumulated last year was still lacking for him. If he could achieve a godly talent that would enable him to make something like a virtual reality game for the entire world, then he would consider himself to have achieved enough improvement. So long as he was not getting to that point, he would continue pursuing improvements rather than profits.

"Whatever you say, Mike."

Despite that sass from Elmer, Mike just chuckled as they followed Bados to finalize the contract.

____________________

After they were done, Mike finally left. Before that though, he promised that he would go to their next gathering before he got to the taxi.

As they watched the receding form of the cab, the two looked at each other before Bados stopped as he scratched the side of his chin.

"Well... now I know why you call him strangely obsessive."

"I know, right? I don't know just what he wants to do with that kind of resource. Just how much does his game need to necessitate that?"

Bados waved his hand. "Well, he's a paying customer now. He doesn't want the discount and paid the rent in full. I think we'll get along just fine."

"Hey, if you try and squeeze my bro out--" Elmer's gaze narrowed.

"Chill, Elmer. I'm just saying how straightforward he is. Most of the time, people are indecisive about this kind of thing. For an indie, he's got the guts!"

"... I don't know. It feels like it's gotten worse since then. Having a lot of server resources is a bit excessive, don't you think?" Elmer's shoulders slumped in defeat.

Bados was also curious about it. It seemed like the guy was intent on buying something more expensive even with how unnecessary it was. Even if he was curious, though, he knew he wouldn't get an answer, as his friend was also clueless. He decided to just change the topic.

"So... wanna have a drink? I will invite him, but you said he doesn't drink, so I refrained from doing so."

"Next time. You still have to take care of your work."

"I'm the boss. I can just leave it to my workers." He grinned at him.

"First month of your operation, and you're already slacking off. Just how did you get so successful abroad?"

"I'm just that good."

With that, even when Elmer was a bit concerned and Bados thought Mike was a bit strange in a positive way, the two stopped thinking so much about it and then went on their way to have some drinks at a nearby bar.

____________________

Even with the weirdness, with Elmer as a crutch, he managed to buy a server rack from Bados for a million. He could afford it. He was getting a continuous stream of money from his game after all. Idle Power's surge of popularity doesn't relent. There were already five million downloads of his game, and if the income he was getting was right, there were at least a million players concurrently playing his game every day.

Actually, that's just his own estimate. He doesn't know, as he doesn't really see the traffic on his game, with it being a standalone one that doesn't need online capabilities. Though there were already a million players who had bought the only in-app purchase on the game, his PayBud was rattling donations after donations that he had to mute the notifications so it didn't distract him.

He would like to immediately set it up and then use it for the CGA game server but quickly stopped himself. He still hasn't made the backend for it. He was also quite busy learning everything about it and implementing it on Idle Power.

Server providers only took care of the hardware. It was all up to him to deal with the software side. So for an entire weekday, he has been cramming as much knowledge as he can for making online servers from online tutorials and other technical blogs and using his talent for innovation and coding to fill in the blanks on the parts he has no knowledge of.

When Sunday came, he was done. He just made a simple high score display system in Idle Power. This system showed the progress of every player registered. To show their high score, they have to register their email account or connect their Woogle account to it. After that, their progress in their game, like what stage they were currently at, how many powers they had unlocked, how much value their status had, and the look of their avatar, was displayed on that high score board along with their preferred username.

It's a very simple system, and he made sure it was always online. He even had to rent another server from BU Company as a backup just so it would continue running even if something happened to the initial server.

"Next is the PvP!"

He might have called it PvP, but it couldn't really be considered one as everything in the game was automatic. In a game like this one where there were statuses and powers that players could throw, a one-on-one PvP arena would be the ideal design for multiplayer fights. Mike wanted to go further than that.

"With the current state of Idle Power, Invasion might be a good system to implement!"

Invasion. It's a system he just thought of after seeing the joke rivalry between the evil-aligned and the good-aligned players of Idle Power from the official server. This new game mode featured a system where players could visit the world of the other players. The stage they would land on depended on which stage the player of the one they were visiting was currently idly running. If a player with the same core trait visited the world, they would be announced as an ally from another world, but if the one visiting has an opposite trait, then it would notify the player that an enemy was invading their world.

Just imagining evil-aligned players being invaded by a group of good-aligned players excites him, so he quickly made the preparations to implement the system.

Of course, he knew just how capricious the players were. There was a high chance they suddenly decided to troll and make the lives of weaker and newbie players miserable. That's why he would make some restrictions, like limiting players so they could only visit those who had the same progression as them. Players couldn't just visit other weaker or stronger players.

Obviously, that kind of system would be too stifling, so he also decided to make a friend and invite system so players, instead of letting strangers enter their game, could invite someone they wanted. It would be quite stupid if they got bullied when they were the ones who invited a stranger. The owner of the world could kick any players they invited. It's not the case if an invasion occurred, and once again, invasion was only possible to a player with the same progression as the one being invaded.

It might be a bit hard because that meant programming a system that would compare players to each other so there would be no mismatch when invasion occurred, but Mike doesn't care. It sounded interesting, so he would implement it.

"I think a limit of twenty visitors will be enough."

He couldn't just not limit the amount of players visiting one player. It would overwhelm the server he was using, and despite it being high-end, it's just a single server. There was a backup one, but he wasn't using a server cluster to take the burden of something like thousands of players simultaneously playing together.

In fact, ten would also be too much, but with it being an idle game, it doesn't really matter if the player's connection was a bit delayed. They didn't have to operate anything in the game. They just had to watch as their avatars duked it out with each other, with the mobs on the stage as collateral.

With those in mind, he started programming once more.

____________________

At the same time as he was doing that, he was also developing CGA in tandem with it. Once again, he was only getting profits from Idle Power every day. He couldn't get any improvements from the game anymore, so he had to finish the private server for CGA before the month ended.

He had changed his internet plans for the fastest one and had also ordered other necessary stuff like a cooling system so his server rack would work optimally. Naturally, that wasn't enough, but that's the extent of what he could do while still staying at his house.

"I have rented a small commercial room nearby recently, but that's for the voice-over studio I'm planning to establish. It will take until next month before it's done. I can't use it as a server room."

He hasn't forgotten about the studio. He has ordered a lot of stuff needed and also demanded a lot of the architect, like having a soundproof booth and the like for better sound ambience and quality. He was feeling a bit impatient, though the construction company he commissioned said it would take until February before they could finish it even with how small the room was. It couldn't be helped. He couldn't build it himself, and even if he could, he's just a single person. He also doesn't have a plan to improve any of his construction skills. There was no reason for him due to his chosen profession.

"After this, I think I have to read any tutorials for voice coaching and anything I need to know about managing a voice acting school. I think I also need to find voice actresses for the game."

He felt a bit reluctant to recruit any Filipina. Women in this country had a tendency to look down on people who have interests like his. His impression of women was also a bit bad because he had seen many times just how bitchy they could get with anything and everything. Most of the girlfriends of his coworkers and most of his female coworkers in his past job were all like that. They were the type who just followed the trends and thought they knew everything. The type of people that was so common in this country that he came to hate it.

Mostly on those women who had relationships with guys. He doesn't know why, but most of the time, those women were always clingy and possessive. He wondered if they were influenced by the usual telenovela slop this country's popular channels usually put in their programs, because there were frequent cases where conflicts reminiscent of those dramas would happen in his neighborhood and anywhere else he occasionally passed by.

Of course, he doesn't include any women in this category. One of his few female friends, Catherine, was one girl who he saw favorably because her hobbies were close to his. Unlike him, though, Catherine is an anime enthusiast and could be considered a weeb due to her constant use of broken Japanese lingo.

"Ugh... I should finish this up first before thinking of that stuff."

He put his attention back to finishing the private server for CGA. It would take him until next week, but he thought it would be worth it.

"I also have to tell them to stop donating to me." He muttered to himself.

He was fine if it was directed to Idle Power, but he really hoped people would stop directing their donations to Cute Girls Academy. It's his only game to farm more skill improvements.