Bidding War
The chat was a collective monologue of demands.
Of course it was a free-for-all—you'd thrown a bunch of different people into one room. Still, buried under all the noise I could pick out a common thread, a shared question.
What was today's main theme? What kind of stream were we doing?
"Today… well, I didn't really decide anything before going live. I was just bored and figured I'd hang out with you guys."
Most of the chat wanted Abyss, which made sense. My stream had started with Abyss and still ran on it; the 2,300 people watching now had mostly found me through the game.
But I didn't feel like launching Abyss today.
Maybe I'd been playing it day and night too hard lately, or maybe it was just the years of never missing a single day. Either way, even with no team practice scheduled, I didn't want to boot it up. It wasn't like I needed solo practice at my level.
"Do we really need a semifinals rewatch? I already went back through the public match POV yesterday and it's more fun watching with the casters' commentary. As for just-chat… I'm not exactly great with words. Yeah. Aren't we already just-chatting and communicating right now?"
Talking when you're not playing a game is communication, right? So rewatch and just-chat were both out. That left firing up something else.
I'd always been interested in other games too. Abyss was my main and my favorite, but I liked games in general. Whenever the industry dropped something the community was raving about as a must-play, I usually gave it a shot.
Come to think of it, I'd jumped three years into the future. Abyss had changed a lot in that time, so there had to be a pile of new releases I knew nothing about.
"Anything with a reasonable playtime I can finish in a day…"
I couldn't touch anything too massive. I had team practice tomorrow and needed to be back in Abyss. Masterpieces with long stories that stretched the playtime were a pass—I'd set those aside for a free day later.
Today I wanted something six to eight hours max, or even shorter.
The second I announced variety games, viewers started raising their hands with suggestions one after another. Absolute chaos. Maybe it was the jump in viewer count, but the speed was insane.
Given how many different titles were flying out despite the earlier pushback, pure Abyss-only bloods seemed rare in my room. Most people mixed in other games.
I started googling the names popping up in chat to see what kind of games they were.
"Hmm, they all look fun. Hard to decide."
The high-speed racing game someone recommended, the zombie-smashing one, the chill farming sim—everything looked good. With my quiet case of choice paralysis, picking just one was tough. Too many options was its own problem.
I was still deliberating like someone staring at a restaurant menu when it happened.
RacingLover donated 10,000 won
The Car. Escape the stuffy room and zoom down open roads in a racing game. Easy controls and super beginner-friendly!
Someone's donation.
Even after my gender flip and waking up in Camilla's body, one thing hadn't changed: this was still a capitalist society.
When money entered the picture… it felt more sincere, like real heart was behind it. Naturally the scale in my mind tipped that way. From ancient times, sincerity was supposed to be met with sincerity.
Plus, unlike the chat window where everyone had to fight for my attention, a donation window delivered the game pitch to me alone—extra appeal right there.
"Aha. The Car? Is that how you say it? Racing game. Hmm. Racing doesn't sound bad. My car runs the Autobahn. Vroom vroom."
In this harsh world someone was putting money in my hand just to get me to play their game—how could I ignore that?
I moved the mouse to install the racing game after pocketing that solid 10,000 won when—
Super.Fun.As.Hell. donated 30,000 won
How about a plate of roguelike? Playtime isn't long and you can quit mid-run. It's kinda mechanical so streamer would probably be good at it?
…30,000 won?
A roguelike suddenly cutting in.
A full 20,000 more than the racing game's 10k.
Huh. This felt off.
My instincts screamed that a board had just opened.
The racing game dropped 10k and the roguelike answered with 30k—something had caught fire. Like a signal, people started donating one after another to push their own games.
PockmarkGame donated 50,000 won
I wanna hear Kayack's kawaii scream….
OneShotOpportunity donated 60,000 won
Never again war! Never again war!
Super.Fun.As.Hell. donated 70,000 won
Roguelike kyaaaaah!
Eventually the donation messages themselves stopped mattering. People just typed whatever and raised the bid in turns like an auction.
"Heh… huff…"
All I could do was play along each time—yeah that game looks fun, this one too—but after a while even that turned into pure laughter.
Was this the environment big streamers had been living in all along? Every time they tried to pick a game, people shoved money at them begging them to play theirs?
An impromptu cyber auction had broken out. Topic: which game would Kayack play.
It didn't take long for a winner to emerge.
PockmarkGame donated 150,000 won
I wanna see Kayack play a horror game….
I clapped my hands and opened my mouth again.
"Alright, today's a horror game. Anyone got complaints?"
Of course the other games that had poured money in but lost the bid would get played eventually too. After donating that much it would feel too mean not to touch them at all.
Later, when I had time. Yeah. When I was free.
Whenever that might be.