Rafe changedinto jeans and a REKD T-shirt before going back into the living room to get in a little more work. He’d finished going through his messages. He might have time to work on some lore for a new champion.
He settled on the couch again and opened his laptop. One of the things the four of them had agreed on when they’d started their business was that they didn’t want to be one of those game publishers who created a game and then moved on. Those companies didn’t update their games to keep them fresh for the players. It was like finding a program you loved but the company stopped supporting it.
Rafe had been the only one who’d seen the potential to enter the world of Esports, so he’d madesure to keep that as their end goal—and their spring competitions had been even more successful than he’d hoped, with their highest worldwide viewing approaching a quarter of a million people just for the North American teams.
He opened his champion document. They had a team of designers who brainstormed ideas for creating new champions or updating existing ones. Rafe didn’t have time to sit in on many of those meetings, but he insisted on keeping his finger in that aspect of the creation.
They’d built the business’s structure to encourage creativity from all levels. To succeed with an ongoing game that wasn’t a single release, it had to be ever growing and changing. He chuckled softly, remembering the expression on the attorney’s face that he was interviewing when he’d told her she would be required to play the game. Everyone was.
From the feedback they’d received, people who played REKD liked the variety of champions, and the difference in skills required to play them, from simple to complex. Some required precise skill shots in battle while others were much simpler. The competitive nature spanned a broad range of interests.
None of the four founders could play the game as well as the pro teams, but it was fun to get invited to one of their skirmishes and test out his own skills. The day when parents used to tell their children they could never make a living playing video games was a thing of the past, not when their pool for the winning MSC team was approaching $2 million. And the prize for the Midsummer Clash would be half that of the World finals.
Rafe felt satisfaction at having helped to create something that garnered so much passion from its players. He loved reading about parents playing with their kids and connecting through their shared love of the game. His game. His and the guys. The lore pages he wrote got as many views as the ones for weapons did, so it was clear that players enjoyed finding out the history of their favorite champions. Someday he might even find somebodyhe trusted, who could be the CEO instead of him, so he’d be free to play and create like the other guys.
He heard Ahri’s door open and glanced over his shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed from her hot bath. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, as Bill had instructed. She wore capris and a colorful blouse, looking very different from when they’d arrived. He found himself staring at her a little too long and turned back to his laptop.
“Bill’s not back yet,” he said. “If you’re hungry, help yourself to the snacks over there.”
“I’m fine.” She came to stand behind him and leaned over to read what he was writing. “What’s this?”
Rafe rubbed the back of his neck, resisting the impulse to close the laptop. He usually didn’t let people read the first draft of the stories he wove about the characters. But with everything that Ahri had been through, he was glad to provide something that could distract her from it, even for a little while.
“It’s the background for a new champ I’m proposing.”
“Intriguing.” She came around the couch, sat close beside him, and continued to read.
“This is just the first draft.” Rafe fiddled with the laptop cord.
“It’s good.” She glanced up at him. “Is she going to be human?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“If she is, make her a different race. Your champion pool isn’t very balanced.”
“What do you mean?’”
“Well, you have lots of nonhumans. Of the humans, you don’t have many who are people of color. You only have a few Asians and none are women. There’s only a couple of black champions—both guys, by the way—but no Latinos at all. Seriously, you guys need to fix that.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, and we’re working on it,” Rafe said. “It takes time.”
“While you’re at it, can you put more armor on your femalechampions?” Ahri leaned back. “No woman in her right mind would go into battle wearing practically nothing.”
“You sound like my mother,” Rafe said. “It helps to draw our players to the game, and most of them are guys.” He looked down at her. “And several of the male champions wear things like kilts and are bare chested.”
“That’s a lame excuse.”
“I get it, but girl gamers don’t go for competitive games like REKD nearly as much as guys do. The motivations are different.”
Ahri crossed her arms, and Rafe’s face went warm. He wasn’t used to being challenged, but he liked her spunk. He and the guys had to work hard to keep their employees from kowtowing to them.
“I get it,” he said, “but you were raised with a gamer brother who shared his love of these kinds of games with you. The stats show that female players tend to look for completion rather than competition in their video games.”
“Maybe. I think there are probably more female REKD players than will publicly admit it because of the way the guys act when they find out someone on their team is a girl. That’s why we choose names that don’t identify gender.”
“We do periodic surveys of our players,” Rafe offered. “I’ll make sure they ask that question next time.”
“Be sure to ask if girl gamers don’t like the clothing choices of female champs.”
