160 - Negotiations (Patreon)

As Alex set up the cars he would use in the game, one of the things he decided on was what game he would base it on.

Instead of just copying NFS Most Wanted or NFS Heat, Alex decided to just mix the two.

Both with the progression of NFS Most Wanted with 10 very difficult rivals for the Players to deal with, as well as the division of races during the day would give money while races at night would give reputation for the Player to unlock parts for the car.

The list of cars he had made was practically ready, with a total of 600 different cars, Alex used the System to analyze the performance of the cars in real life and replicate all the statistics and data of the cars in the game.

Since this game was immersive, Alex wasn't going to make it as unrealistic as the NFS games were, but he chose to make everything as similar to a simulator game as possible.

Of course, it also included several adjustment options where Players could activate game assists, such as letting the car shift automatically, showing the street layout for better performance, signaling where the Player should start braking to avoid hitting the curve, among other assistance that would help those who did not have as much experience driving.

The fewer of these assists the Player had activated, the greater the bonus he would receive at the end of the races, which would encourage Players to really learn to drive the cars while playing and turn off the assists over time.

For those Players who had never driven and would have difficulty playing, Alex also found a solution for that.

During the game's prologue, unlike NFS Most Wanted which started with a high-intensity race, Alex decided to adopt the approach of NFS Underground 2, where the Player would start driving a completely customized Nissan 350z, next to the Player would be an NPC female, the owner of the car that the Player would be driving, who would analyze how much difficulty the Player was experiencing when driving.

If the Player was already an experienced driver, but afraid of driving fast, she would encourage him to start accelerating and racing among the other cars.

If the Player was someone who already started driving like this, she would just stay quiet and give information about the city to the Player.

If the Player had no experience driving, she would calmly explain to him how to drive and ask if he would like to activate the assists.

This way, everyone would have a chance to play, and even those who have never driven a car in real life could learn to drive perfectly in the game.

Especially with a feature that Alex added.

Driving School, where Players could learn to drive from basics to more advanced movements for racing, thus giving Players a place to improve with teachers all the time.

With all the cars completed in basic form, Alex went to meet with the car brand company representatives.

Instead of meeting with everyone, Alex just gathered all the representatives in a meeting room using Notch's account.

When the representatives saw the man entering the meeting room, with long black hair, red eyes, and a perfectly fitted suit on his body, a slightly oppressed feeling arose.

Not only because of the financial and political power that this man had in the world, but also because of the physical power he had, as they saw when he was dealing with Magneto and that other Hulk that appeared in the news.

Before they could say anything, Notch just raised his hand slightly as he explained.

"As you can all imagine when you see your companions here too, I'm interested in adding your cars to my games, both in Oasis and in a new IP I'm developing." Notch said calmly, making these representatives' hearts race a little, as they knew that a new IP from Notch meant yet another world-shaking game.

Seeing that a man raised his hand slightly wanting to speak, Notch waved at him.

From the information he had, Alex recognized the man as Oliver Smith, the representative of Aston Martin, a British luxury car manufacturer.

"Mr. Notch, could you tell us something about this new IP, like where our cars would fit into this?"

Nodding, Alex explained. "The next game developed is a street car racing game, so the Players' focus and progress in the game will be entirely on the cars they drive, generating great publicity for your brand, as well as possibly developing a relationship intimacy between the Player and his favorite car, which will also result in his favorability with your brand rising, of course, the cars in the game will have their performance spread to the performance in reality, so it will only depend on the feeling when driving the car, the aesthetics, and your brand which car the Player will like best."

Hearing this, these representatives actually agreed with Notch, since even they, when they were kids, liked playing with cars in video games back then, and now here they were, working at companies they admired, but in a world like Oasis, there was pros and cons for them to join.

The advantage was that their cars would really get into the eyes of the Players as well as developing more passion for the brand much more easily. The downside was that there might be people who wouldn't like the cars because they saw a lot of people using them in the game.

After digesting Alex's explanation, Oliver Smith raised his hand again with a bright expression.

With Notch's nod, he soon asked. "Mr. Notch, I'm quite interested in this deal, but I'm curious how much you're willing to pay for copyright fees on our brand cars?"

Hearing his question, the other representatives also became interested and looked at Notch expectantly, since based on how much Notch would offer for Aston Martin, they would be able to deduce how much they could charge for their brands.

This was common practice when they dealt with other racing games, the game companies paid fees to be able to use their cars, while they only needed to make a few copies of the cars available for the companies to analyze, record the sounds, and measure to model in 3D.

But to their surprise, a small smile on Notch's face made them worry, and when Notch finally responded, they were confused and shocked.

"I'm sorry Mr. Smith, I don't intend to pay copyright fees, in fact it's the opposite, I'm here to ask you how much you intend to pay for your brands to participate in my next game?" Notch said as he leaned back in his chair and looked at the shocked and slightly enraged expressions of each of the representatives.