The first official team meeting of Legend Interactive took place on a Tuesday morning in their new conference room.
Twelve people sat around a long table that was slightly too large for the room, sipping coffee from mismatched mugs because no one had gotten around to ordering a proper studio set yet.
Leo stood at the head of the room with a clean whiteboard behind him.
Marcus sat at the far end, arms folded over his chest, already thinking three steps ahead of whatever was about to come out of Leo’s mouth.
“Look guys, here is the core problem,” Leo began, skipping any corporate preamble.
“Every single game developer in this current market builds games for PC.
Every one of them.
They develop a title, list it on PlayForge or a competing platform, slap a price tag anywhere from ten to sixty dollars on it, and pray that good reviews cover their production costs.
If the game hits, great.
If it flops, the studio absorbs the loss and starts all over again.” He uncapped a black marker and drew a clean circle on the whiteboard.
“That is the entire industry right now.
One business model.
One revenue stream.
One platform ecosystem.
Nobody has bothered trying anything else because nobody has had a compelling reason to.
The model works just well enough that no studio has been desperate enough to innovate.” He drew a second, separate circle on the right side of the board.
“Mobile games.
Right now, this market exists but barely.
There are a handful of basic puzzle apps and a few card games that look like they were built a decade ago, a few multiplayer games with crude graphics, but nothing a serious gamer would ever touch, and even those pamper the gamers too much.
Zero prestige, zero major revenue, and zero real competition.” He drew a sharp arrow connecting the two circles.
“This is where we are going.” The room fell quiet.
It wasn’t a hostile silence, just twelve minds processing a radical shift.
Marcus’s expression remained completely unreadable.
Ava leaned forward in her chair, genuinely intrigued.
Kyle watched the whiteboard through a small opening in the oversized hoodie he had pulled over his head.
“The title I am talking about is an online multiplayer snake game,” Leo explained.
“Simple core concept: you pilot a snake, consume energy nodes to grow, maneuver around other players, and try to become the largest creature on the server.
You can team up with friends, execute coordinated traps, and cut off rivals.
Matches are fast, play sessions are short, and the actual skill ceiling is vastly higher than it looks.” “And what is the monetization model?” Marcus asked directly.
“We will make it Free to play.” The energy in the room shifted instantly.
A few of the junior developers exchanged bewildered looks.
In this world’s market, the word free implied an amateurish student project or a charity release.
No legitimate gaming studio gave away their main product for zero dollars.
“If it’s free, where’s the money?” Marcus pressed.
“Cosmetics,” Leo replied smoothly.
“We’ll make them buy custom skins for the snake, unique avatar frames, and special visual effects.
None of it impacts actual gameplay.
But paying players look unique.
On top of that, we run a gacha/draw system for rare items which will include limited-time character designs, seasonal cosmetics, and exclusive collectibles.
Random draws, low odds on premium tier items, and guaranteed common drops to keep players pulling.” Leo had expected the room to be blown away by the business logic.
What he got instead was Marcus staring back at him with an expression that sat right on the edge between fascination and deep moral discomfort.
“Gacha?” Marcus repeated flatly.
“You are describing a digital gambling machine.
Designed for a game that kids are going to play?” The conference room went dead silent.
“It is not gambling,” Leo countered gently.
“Every single pull guarantees a reward.
The drop odds are fully disclosed.
There is no real-money trading and no secondary marketplace.” “The odds are disclosed and they are terrible.
That is by design,” Marcus said, leaning forward on his elbows.
“You are intentionally engineering a dopamine loop to keep people spending far past the point of rational decision-making.
I have watched this exact model play out in other industries, Leo.
The underlying psychology is identical to a casino floor.
The only difference here is the colorful graphics.” Before Leo could respond, Ava’s voice cut clearly across the quiet room.
She had been silent through the entire presentation, but her jaw was set tight.
“That’s right, I was just a regular player six months ago,” she said, her tone sharp and grounded.
“I am literally the exact target demographic for something like this.
If someone had put a predatory gacha system in front of me at fifteen with access to a card, I would have spent money I did not even have chasing a rare cosmetic that does absolutely nothing.
And I know that because I came close to doing it twice on a different app.” She paused, looking directly at Leo.
“I am not telling you not to build it.
I am saying you need to be honest about what you are constructing and who it is going to hit.” The silence that followed was the most productive silence Leo had experienced since taking over this life.
He looked at Marcus.
He looked at Ava.
Then he looked back at the whiteboard, where his neat two-circle diagram suddenly felt like it was missing a critical piece.
“You are both right,” Leo acknowledged, turning back to face the room.
“And I am not going to stand here and pretend this model is entirely harmless.
Gacha models succeed because they tap into a real psychological vulnerability.
If we are going to use it, we are going to build mandatory guardrails directly into the system.” He picked up the marker again and wrote three words in bold letters across the top of the board: SPENDING CAPS.
TRANSPARENCY.
ACCOUNTABILITY.
“Okay so here are some additions to the rules.” “1.
Daily spending limits on accounts flagged as belonging to minors,” Leo stated firmly.
“2.
Full odds disclosure on every banner, presented clearly instead of buried inside a fifty-page terms of service agreement.” “3.
A mandatory cooldown timer that pauses gacha access after a set number of consecutive pulls.” “And 4.
An automated refund system for accidental purchases.” Marcus studied the new additions on the board.
“But that will noticeably cut into our profit margins.” “It will,” Leo agreed.
“And it also means that when politicians or parent advocate groups inevitably turn their attention toward mobile gaming, we will be the one studio that already solved the exact issues they are complaining about.
The long-term PR value of being recognized as a responsible developer is worth far more than the short-term gacha revenue we might give up.” Marcus locked eyes with Leo for a long moment, then gave a single, slow nod of quiet respect for a practical compromise that addressed the problem head-on without pretending it didn’t exist.
“What about our distribution strategy?” Marcus asked, steering the conversation back to logistics.
“There is no established mobile gaming storefront right now in the market.
Where do players even discover this?” “Standard app stores.” Leo explained.
“See, every smartphone manufacturer runs their own native app directory.
On top of that, we buy targeted advertisements on social platforms and short-form video apps.
Any channel that converts passive scrolling into raw app downloads becomes our distribution partner.
We do not need a traditional gaming platform.
We just need traffic.” “And the advertisements themselves?” “Viral, meme-driven, and highly shareable,” Leo said with a grin.
“The kind of content people send to their friends because it is genuinely funny, not because it feels like a forced sales pitch.
We make the advertisement entertaining enough that people watch it voluntarily.” Leo glanced around the long table.
The junior developers were furiously taking notes.
Kyle had pulled his hoodie back, making direct eye contact with the whiteboard, which for him was practically a standing ovation.
Ava’s arms were still crossed, but her guarded expression had softened into cautious interest.
Marcus uncrossed his arms and reached for his coffee mug.
“Alright,” he said, taking a sip.
“I have a lot of minor technical objections and I mean a LOT, but none of them are dealbreakers.
So, let’s build the thing.” Leo capped his whiteboard marker with a firm click.
The debate was over, and the blueprint was set.
They were about to unleash a storm on a mobile market that had no idea what was coming.
A/N: I know some skeptics might be thinking that Leo’s first game without the system is just too simple, or that he can’t do anything without it.
But as I said earlier, be patient for a couple more chapters.
I think you guys will really like it!