“All right, Alex. You confidently requested exactly thirty minutes. The clock is officially running.”
Alex reached calmly into his faded backpack and pulled out the two plastic floppy disks.
“I need a computer,” he stated simply.
Lex raised a sharp eyebrow.
Then, he silently stood and walked over to a massive, polished desk in the far corner of the study…
a sleek, hyper-modern workstation that looked dramatically, violently out of place amid all the ancient medieval decor.
He pulled out a heavy leather chair and gestured for Alex to take it.
Alex sat down immediately, inserted the very first floppy disk, and smoothly opened the game.
“This is Crystal Cascade,” he explained calmly.
“A highly addictive match-three puzzle game specifically designed for web browsers. Swap adjacent, colored gems to instantly create rows or columns of three or more. Matching gems initiate a cascade… they actively clear, the heavy gems above them realistically fall, and if the falling gems somehow create entirely new matches, those immediately trigger automatically. Each subsequent cascade significantly multiplies your total score. The ultimate goal is to desperately reach a target score before the ticking timer completely runs out.”
Alex quickly launched the game’s demo level.
The digital grid appeared…
an eight-by-eight board of beautifully glittering gems in exactly six distinct colors set against a sleek, dark background.
The colorful gems caught the bright light of the monitor with a subtle, realistic shimmer effect that Alex had literally spent an entire frustrating afternoon perfecting.
“Try it,” he offered simply, and calmly stood up.
Lex looked at him silently.
Then down at the glowing screen.
Then back up at Alex.
“You seriously want me to play a video game.”
“I absolutely want you to completely understand the actual product before I bother to pitch the massive investment.”
Something fundamentally shifted in Lex’s tight expression.
The very faintest flicker of real respect…
not for the basic game, not quite yet, but definitely for the bold approach.
Alex absolutely wasn’t begging.
He wasn’t desperately performing.
He was simply presenting a finished product with the absolute, unshakeable confidence of someone who already knew it was extremely good.
Lex quietly sat down and clicked the very first gem.
Twenty minutes later, Lex was furiously battling on level fourteen and hadn’t spoken a single, solitary word.
Alex stood casually by the massive bookshelf, quietly watching.
highly appropriate reading material for a Luthor study…
and was idly pretending to read it while actually observing Lex entirely from the corner of his eye.
The rapid transformation was subtle but completely unmistakable.
In the very first minute, Lex had played with a sense of detached, polite curiosity…
clicking gems casually, treating the whole thing as a polite social obligation.
By the third minute, his rapid clicks had become noticeably faster.
Much more deliberate.
By the fifth minute, he was leaning heavily forward in his leather chair, his expensive water completely forgotten on the desk right beside him.
By the tenth minute, his sharp jaw was rigidly set with intense concentration and his eyes quickly tracked the cascading gems with the absolute intensity of a ruthless man aggressively analyzing a fluctuating stock ticker.
By the twentieth minute, he was completely hooked.
A massive, totally unexpected six-chain cascade violently exploded across the entire screen.
Colorful gems shattered dramatically in huge waves.
The bright score counter spun wildly out of control.
Lex’s lips twitched…
not quite a smile, but the totally involuntary muscular response of a highly intelligent brain receiving a perfectly, precisely calibrated dopamine reward.
Alex waited patiently for the frantic level to finally end.
When the bright “Level Complete” screen triumphantly appeared, Lex sat back heavily in his chair and just stared silently at the monitor.
“How long did you actually spend on this?” Lex finally asked, his voice quiet.
“Four days.”
Lex turned slowly and looked directly at him.
Really looked at him…
the exact way a grandmaster chess player intensely looks at an unexpected opponent who has just made a totally brilliant, unforeseen move.
“Four days.”
“The actual code is simple. The psychological design is what truly matters. I can clearly explain the monetization model right now if you are interested.”
“I am highly interested.”
Alex quickly inserted the second floppy disk and opened the massive design document.
He systematically walked Lex directly through it…
the brilliant tiered pricing model, the highly addictive expansion pack system, the totally free demo explicitly serving as a massive customer acquisition tool, the paid premium version heavily loaded with additional difficult levels and unique game modes. This chapter is updated first at NovelPing.
Lex read the massive document in absolute silence.
He slowly scrolled right through it, occasionally going all the way back to carefully reread a complex section.
His expression absolutely did not change, but Alex could clearly see his brilliant mind furiously working…
rapidly processing the numbers, aggressively evaluating the financial projections, perfectly mapping the unique business model directly against his own massive understanding of the rapidly emerging digital market.
When he finally finished, he closed the long document and turned back to Alex.
“You built this completely on the Smallville Public Library’s ancient computers?”
“Yes.”
“What programming languages?”
“JavaScript and HTML. It runs flawlessly in any modern internet browser. No downloads. No annoying installations. The barrier to entry is effectively zero.”
“And you honestly think this is worth heavily investing in.”
“I absolutely think the casual gaming market is about to entirely explode. I think the global internet is going to rapidly become the primary entertainment platform for three hundred million people within just five short years. And I firmly think the smart company that figures out how to aggressively monetize simple, highly addictive, browser-based games right before anyone else does will be perfectly positioned to completely dominate that massive market.”
Alex paused.
“I am absolutely not asking you to buy a simple game, Lex. I am asking you to heavily buy a market position.”
Lex carefully studied him for a very long moment.
The massive fire crackled loudly behind them.
Outside the tall study windows, the wide Kansas sky was rapidly turning a brilliant orange with the late afternoon sun.
“Exactly how much do you need?”
“Fifty thousand dollars for the immediate initial development and deployment. I will need to quickly hire a professional web designer to heavily polish the graphics, completely secure a domain and reliable hosting, and firmly build an airtight payment processing system. In direct exchange, you immediately get sixty percent of the entire company… full majority stake, complete financial transparency, guaranteed quarterly reports.”
“You are actually offering me a full sixty percent?”
“I am offering you a direct, controlling interest in something massive that does not actually exist yet. When it inevitably does exist, your sixty percent will instantly be worth considerably more than a mere fifty thousand dollars.”
Lex’s lips finally curved into a real, wide smile.
Not the fake, polite smile of social interaction, or the cold, calculated smile of a brutal business negotiation.
A totally genuine smile of deep appreciation…
the incredibly rare expression of a brilliant man who had just unexpectedly met someone who actually spoke his unique language.
“Most people who desperately come to me for money frantically try to keep as large a share as humanly possible,” Lex noted smoothly.
“They aggressively haggle over single percentages like their very lives intimately depend on it. You are giving away total majority control completely voluntarily. Why?”
“Because I honestly do not care about total control. I care entirely about massive resources. You obviously have money, heavy infrastructure, and a massive distribution network. I have highly profitable ideas and the absolute ability to execute them perfectly. The working partnership is worth significantly more than the empty percentages.”
Alex calmly held Lex’s piercing gaze.
“And largely because I would vastly rather have forty percent of something massive built firmly on a solid foundation of mutual respect, than a full hundred percent of something built entirely on deep resentment.”