“Server usage is pegged,” Luna said.
“Bandwidth at max.” That was Danny.
Status reports continued to flow in from everyone who was monitoring. There was extra pressure going live days before RinCon. Launching a few days early gave us time to make sure that the kinks were worked out before the show. That the queues had evened out.
But that everything was still maxed. That the buzz had shifted fromI can’t log intoI don’t want to log off.
Of course, if the game crashed and burned, we’d hate the bad press. But we’d also spin it to our advantage. That was one of many things Dustin did exceptionally well. He’d learned from the best, and now he was the best. The student had become the master and all that.
Everyone hung up their phones. For the next several hours, half of us worked to optimize and correct and make sure the game didn’t completely crash, and the other half tested any minor tweaks before they went live.
This was what happened when a game opened for the first time, if it had any good buzz at all. Everyone lined up to play, no one could get in right away unless they got really lucky, andservers and information pipelines got clogged until they were ready to burst.
But we kept it all online. The only reason anyone got up from their desks was to pee. Ivan, our office manager, made sure we had plenty of coffee, water, and whatever.
A little after two, Elliot emerged from his office. “Pizza in the break room. Go grab some, Team Beta, then Team Quail, and Team Starburst last. Everyone eats. No one spills on their keyboards.”
A few of the team grumbled, and a couple more saidOkay, Dad.
Yeah, it was tense in here, but it wasn’t a bad kind of tension. I did love this place. By four in the afternoon, we’d balanced the load on the servers, and the game had stayed online, aside from a few individual channel crashes that we recovered from quickly.
A collective relief seeped into the air.
A murmur started on one side of the room, but I couldn’t tell about what. Until my phone chimed with a new alert. Fallyn had posted a new video.
She wouldn’t. Not today. It had nothing to do with us, I was sure of it.
Except the caption wasAcesSpayed? Why ET Howard’s New Game is Totally Not Broken.
A wave of protective fury sped through me.
She did.Fuck.
7/
elliot
The adrenaline of an incredible game day launch spilled through me. I didn’t need more Red Bull, but I was drinking another one anyway. It was going to be a long night, and excitement would only keep me wired for so long.
When Link walked into my office, I grinned. “What do you think?”
“We need to talk.” His somber tone and expression were the opposite of what I expected.
“What’s up?”
He closed the door.
I hated that. “Are you going to dump me?” I teased.
“No.” Link almost cracked a smile. “But…”
“Don’t do that. Whatever this is, get to the point.” I could make up a billion scenarios in my head, but that was what we had Creatives for.
“Fallyn has a new video.”
Oh. Fuck. Only a small portion of her videos were about our game, but there was no reason for Link to act this way if this wasn’t related to us. I was already clicking through on my phone. “Let’s see it, then.”
AcesSpayed? Why ET Howard’s New Game is Totally Not Broken.