Page 3 of Texting My Secret CEO
WatchTower: Guessing this is a ban?
My chat moderator asks, with a message attached.
HOTBRAD: You stupid slut, think you’re so clever and hot, I would pour boiling water down your throat and laugh in your fat face as you choked to death.
I quickly type back
DakkyDuck: How did you guess?
WatchTower: Guessing that’s sarcasm?
DakkyDuck: Right-O
I don’t know whether to laugh or scream.
I’ve built a small empire playing Empire’s Fall, but the significance of this video game’s name is not lost on me. My empire could fall just as easily as the one in the game. All it’d take is the weirdos winning. The negative messages outweighing the good.
Then, I might just end it all.
I glance at the photo again. Me, Noah, and Mara. And remember the promise I made.
CHAPTER 2
JACKSON
Being a CEO, for me, takes a lot of tennis balls. I go through a few a week, at least. A few of my employees have hinted at getting proper stress balls, objects designed to withstand the constant tension that comes with this position. But they don’t understand that breaking the damn thing is one of the most satisfying parts.
I leave the ruined tennis ball on my desk and walk to the tall windows of the top-floor office, looking down like some king over his kingdom. The name I gave to my flagship video game seemed perfect before the stock price started to go down, and the shareholders made demands that had nothing to do with the integrity of the game.
I’ve just finished a meeting with our Japanese office. We run extremely similar versions of the game, but the Japanese version has far more monetization in it. Which essentially means they’re more comfortable with milking their users dry.
We’re not quite there. Yet.
A knock at the door interrupts my thoughts.
“Yes,” I grunt.
Peter walks in, head of media and one of my oldest friends. He’s on the shorter side, with horn-rimmed glasses and a constantly hurried expression on his face. Like he’s always thinking about the next thing. We met in the early days of Halcyon, when I was a gamer with big dreams, and he was a slick PR guy with bleached white teeth.
“Good meeting?” he asks, gesturing at the tennis ball.
“Hmm.” I drop heavily into my seat.
“Selling stuff makes money,” he says with a note of irony. “See? I’m more than just a media guy. I’ve got business savvy too.”
I shake my head. “They’re selling horsecolors, Pete. Not just specific mounts.Colorsfor the mounts. Five bucks and you can make your horse gray instead of black. Is that seriously what we want to become?”
“It’s just the Japanese version.”
“See? That pisses me off.Just. They deserve a good gaming experience too. And how long before the shareholders feel the bump and demand it everywhere else too?”
Peter looks at me for a long moment, then shrugs. He chuckles. “Sorry, man, I’ve got no answers.”
“How does it look from a PR perspective?”
“Bad,” he admits. “Greedy. Turns us from a lovable game developer into just another soulless corporation.”
I open my drawer. Take out a new tennis ball and squeeze.
