Parallel World Game Developer

Chapter 7: Chapter #7: Nexus’ Generational Fumble

When the rejection email arrived, the brains of the acquisitions team at Nexus practically blue-screened.

The rep refreshed his inbox repeatedly, even calling his colleagues over to his monitor to confirm he wasn’t hallucinating.

He hadn’t sent the offer to the wrong person, had he?

He had extended an exclusive invitation to this rising star developer under the umbrella of Titan Interactive.

And an undergrad kid who’s still wet behind his ears had refused it all?

’Are you kidding me?’ he thought, staring blankly at the screen.

It took a solid half-hour for the rep to process reality.

Swallowing hard, he took a screenshot of Ethan’s blunt reply and forwarded it up the corporate ladder.

He was just a middle manager, after all.

But rereading that email, he couldn’t help but shake his head. Was this indie dev really that arrogant?

Looking at the entire gaming industry, who actually had the guts to turn down Titan Interactive?

Sure, everyone publicly trashed Titan on Twitter, but privately, every single one of them would kill for a job there.

Sure enough, the moment that screenshot went up the chain, the retaliation was swift.

The major streaming platforms issued a coordinated broadcast ban on Ascent.

They didn’t have the authority to stop players from buying or playing it on their own, but they strictly prohibited content creators from streaming the game live.

The official reason cited? The game "incited violent tendencies." Since they were the primary distribution and broadcast platforms, they had the TOS clauses to enforce it.

Meanwhile, live on his stream, Silver had finally reached the snow mountain. Every swing of his sledgehammer felt like walking a tightrope over a woodchipper.

Only God knew the absolute hell he had endured to climb this high.

[xX_SniperKing_Xx: the sheer terror in those mouse movements lmaooo]

[GamerDad88: hello chat i am a jar trainee and i have been digging for 2 and a half years]

[Iron_Maiden_99: bro is sweating through his shirt]

[No_Aim_Bot: betting a bag of Doritos he falls in the next 10 mins]

The chat flew past in a blur, trying to stir up a reaction in Silver’s already turbulent mind. He stared intensely at his monitor, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed dryly.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

His phone suddenly blared across the desk. Startled by the sudden noise right as he was mid-swing, Silver’s hand jerked. The mouse slipped.

On screen, the naked man in the cauldron launched backward.

The majestic, lavender-tinted aurora of the arctic peak vanished, replaced by the warm, fiery oranges of the cliffside, and then the blue skies of the Furniture City... all the way down to the rusted pipes and scattered trash of the starting area.

Boom.

The heavy thud of the iron cauldron hitting the ground felt like a physical blow to the chest. Every single viewer watching the broadcast winced in sympathetic agony, let alone Silver, whose hand was still locked in a death grip around his mouse.

The game’s narrator immediately chimed in, delivering an endless stream of philosophical trash talk about the nature of failure.

"What the hell?! Who’s fucking calling me!" Silver roared, his eyes bloodshot.

He had never genuinely wanted to tear someone apart through a screen before this very second.

Chat, naturally, voiced their own outrage. They tuned in specifically to watch Silver lose his mind and break down, but the unspoken rule was that it had to be his own fault.

Hand slips, bad angles, getting too greedy—that was content.

Getting perfectly RNG-ruined by an outside phone call was an entirely different thing.

[Cursed_RNG: ACTUAL DEATH RINGTONE 💀]

[Salty_Tears: ngl if a call made me fall from here id burn my house down]

[TryHard_Tim: it physically hurts to watch]

[PraiseTheSun_99: that drop was brutal man]

[MelonLord: i can fully empathize T_T]

"Hello? What do you want?" Silver answered, his voice dead flat, his face entirely devoid of expression.

The caller ID showed a moderation manager from the platform.

If the guy didn’t have a damn good excuse for ruining the run of a lifetime, Silver was ready to burn bridges.

The rep on the other end clearly saw the broadcast and quickly stammered out the latest directive. The longer the manager spoke, the deeper Silver’s frown became.

After a solid minute, the call disconnected.

Still sitting frozen in his gaming chair, Silver stared blankly at the game screen.

His character had returned to his familiar hometown, and he unconsciously rubbed his chest.

His heart was genuinely aching.

But as painful as the fall was, it didn’t hit him nearly as hard as the news he had just received.

He couldn’t stream the game anymore?!

He was still struggling to process the warning.

’Violent tendencies?’

He didn’t think so.

He had just slammed his keyboard a couple of times.

Since when was that considered a violent public hazard?

The platform had issued a final ultimatum: shut the game down immediately, or face a short-term suspension penalty.

"Guys, we have to stop playing. Something came up," Silver finally said, struggling to find the words to explain it to his stream.

Before he even finished the sentence, chat exploded.

[ZoeFan_01: wait what Zoe just got the exact same call]

[Tinfoil_Hat: all streamers getting calls at once... Coincidence? I THINK NOT!]

[LoreMaster: BRO EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING]

[VOD_Goblin: Chron just said Getting Over It got perma-banned from the platform]

Silver looked at the flood of comments with a complicated expression.

There was no hiding it now; word was spreading word-of-mouth, and everyone seemed to have a piece of the puzzle.

"Yeah, it really can’t be broadcast anymore," Silver sighed, running a hand through his hair.

He was genuinely conflicted. This game had tortured him, psychologically dismantled him, and driven him to the brink of a rage-induced stroke.

But now that he was forbidden from playing it, an empty, hollow feeling settled in his chest.

"Some platform admin just slapped a label on the game for ’inciting violent tendencies’," Silver said, visibly speechless. "I just smashed a couple of cheap keyboards, and suddenly they’re claiming the game is brainwashing people into violent behavior."

"Whatever, I’m just annoyed. Obviously, I can’t stream it here, but there’s no ban on you guys playing it yourselves on your own time."

Listening to his explanation, the viewers were equally baffled. No one actually believed Ascent made people violent.

Streamers lost at multiplayer shooters every day, smashing desks and throwing headsets, and nobody ever slapped a platform-wide ban on those.

[Indie_Dev_Tears: tell devs to never step on corporate toes]

[TinFoil_Hat_2: watch the publishers under Nexus drop a clone called Shovel Up next week lmaoo]

Reading the comments, Silver scoffed. "Damn it, if they actually push out some clone where a guy is shoveling dirt, I’ll be the first one to trash it!"

Within an hour, every single live stream of ’Getting Over It’ had been completely wiped from the platforms.

Back at the dorms, Ethan Vale also received an official system notification.

Nexus had formally delisted his game from their storefront, demanding he "rectify the offending content" before it could be reinstated.

Marcus Shaw glanced over Ethan’s shoulder, his expression grim. "I don’t know if you saw this coming, but I definitely get what’s happening."

Ethan remained silent. ’Of course I understand.’

He knew that getting too much spotlight as a solo indie dev would make him a target, but he hadn’t expected the corporate sabotage to be quite this blatant.

Right on cue, Nexus released a public PR statement.

[Notice: Due to an overwhelming volume of user complaints regarding excessive violent elements, the platform has made the decision to temporarily remove "Getting Over It". The game will be reinstated only after the developer completes a thorough content review and rectification.]

Ethan just smiled.

He calmly opened his developer portal and initiated a full withdrawal of all his earnings from the game’s explosive run.

After platform cuts and taxes, he was left with roughly $230,000.

It was still more than enough to fund his next project.

No will be able to resist his new game...

Not even if they died a ’hundred times’ trying to reach the end.

— — — — —

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