Chapter 328: Flappy Birds III
Whatever Alexander Creed's intention with Flappy Birds may be, it was mostly a mystery when he remains obscure and silent as he always is.
Of course, that wouldn't stop speculations, assumptions, and analyses to pop up.
When stuff happens, people are most certainly bound to react to it.
This time around, their thoughts were centered around certain video games along with the Creed namesake and brand that is attached to it.
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For Flappy Birds and Creed, many parents and guardians most certainly have concerns with it. Especially when it pertains to their children and themselves as well.
Creed's rising ubiquity aside, this new bird-y game of theirs was just something else.
Annoyance, exasperation, bitterness, vexation, irritation, anger, and rage was increasingly apparent to those that play it.
Instead of turning away from toxicity like this, some in-game things only made players glue their attentions to the screens.
The goal of a better score, accruing random coins, and buying a new flappy bird was just quite catchy in many ways.
It was strangely enamoring and addicting which was surely concerning to many people. A mother named Jaid Barrymore was included.
Ever since her daughter had been sent a special package containing this Flappy Birds GameKey... things have changed.
Things have changed for the worse.
If Jaid really thought back on it, this change may have been ever since her daughter was birthday-gifted a Creed Chaos System.
Director Spielberg must have meant well but things weren't sitting right for Jaid. "Drew, we need to talk!"
"About what?" Drew was confused. Her mother came out of nowhere while she was busy tapping away on her controller,
Drew's Flabby bumped the grey pipe and she ultimately wasn't able to flap to a higher score, a new coin, and she was still far away from a new flappy bird to play with. "Now I have to start all over again!"
"About this!" Jaid interjected. "Can't you see that this is a problem? You're so enamored with this, to the point that you hardly have time for anything else."
Jaid was really concerned for Drew.
Why wasn't she interested in going to nightclubs and parties now?
Why was she insistent on staying home or at a family friend's house to just play games?
Didn't she care that her career was at stake? Two flopped movies and downgrading to a TV movie in her last project.
This should be a time for her to tag along even more and meet up with many potential people that can help her.
Hollywood was slowly drifting away and they needed to step up.
Jaid wasn't having it. Drew was key to all these things she couldn't have.
Yet many things weren't going her way.
The main problem was Drew's addiction to this Flappy Birds and game stuff when she should be stomaching something else.
It was wrong and as a parent, Jaid wanted to do something about it. The glitz and glamour of Hollywood should be the only thing that their mother-daughter pair should be enamored with.
For a mother, her concerns for her daughter's game addiction weren't unfounded.
It's just that her reasonings for her concerns are the ones that are more concerning in many, many ways.
"It's not that bad." Drew defended. Not realizing her mother's truly concerning. worries. "This was my first true gift from that Charming Liar and I just want to overscore that blackmailee of mine."
"Drew!" Jaid's expression scrunched up with that. She knew who this Charming Liar was. Her daughter had long been about Prince Charming this, Prince Charming that.
Why was she enamored in that Prince Charming fellow when she never got along with anyone else around her age? Another surprising change in itself.
If Jaid really, really thought back on it, maybe Drew's true change was when she meet that Creed kid.
Flappy Birds, Creed Chaos System, Prince Charming. That Creed kid may be the root of all of Jaid's problems.
It was now Jaid's turn to be confused. What was really so special about that Creed kid, anyways?
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If Jaid turned to certain people in the comic book industry, her question would really have a lot of answers. A whole lot of answers.
Then again, they themselves were also preoccupied with their own Q&As concerning anything Creed. Flappy Birds included.
"So..." Shooter questioned. "What do you think?"
"I'm already old enough as it is." Stan Lee shruggingly answered. "My opinion on a video game, much less playing any other video game, wouldn't amount to much."
Shooter knew that, so he clarified. "I'm not talking about that Bird game. I'm just wondering about your thoughts about Creed Entertainment's decisions as of late. There's also that weird consensus that our peers have come up with."
With all the high-profile push into television, film, and video games... people really believe that Creed Comics was going to be put on the back burner.
It also had to be noted that Watchmen was coming to an end. Meaning that the Creed Comics roster was no longer just stalled, it was dwindling.
This was good news for a lot of comic-making people and how they hoped that it was to dwindle some more.
The threatening Creed Comics would most likely be gone by then.
"Oh... that." Stan didn't really have much to say except that... "It's mostly wishful thinking on their part."
It was really wishful thinking to believe that Creed Comics is going to be on Alexander Creed's back burner.
"Haven't they learned anything at all from weirdly keeping watch of Creed's projects?"
Sure enough, someone like Stan Lee was seeing the bigger picture that's more unfiltered than ever.
Shooter's worries weren't unfounded.
Creed Entertainment's whole push into new fields didn't necessarily mean that their comic books were phasing out.
More than anything, an animation show and video game just meant that they were all the more pushing comic books forward.
Their comic titles may be stalled and dwindling... but that's just the status quo for now.
Un-comic-booky decisions like Flappy Birds might throw other people off but not Shooter.
He knew more than enough to know that someone like Alexander Creed must have something always up his sleeve.
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Even Eisner from Disney wasn't discounting anything from a little kid like Alexander Creed.
Creed Entertainment, along with the secretive kid that's running it, was very intriguing to a busy Disney CEO like him.
Aside from the alarming push into the animation business, this whole Flappy Birds business just got his attention some more.
With just the video game console, they were already winning.
If you take into account the Flappy Birds games and the next other games that that talented kid could come up with... Creed miraculously formed an ever-growing gold mine in a supposedly-dead industry.
To think that such a little and recently-formed jerry-rigged entertainment was able to do something that Hollywood majors weren't able to do.
One of the most publicized push of Hollywood into games was with Universal and Sid Sheinberg via the Nintendo lawsuit. That failed spectacularly.
Universal tried again with Atari via the E.T. game but that failed even more horribly.
In stark contrast, Creed Entertainment and their Creed Games breezed through that like nothing.
That was good and all but what will this mean for Disney?
Of course, it is also to partake in such a gold mine.
The next question was... how to do it?
Partner with Creed? Takeover Creed? Partner with another video game company? Take over another video game company?
Whatever his final choice was, Eisner knew that it will still take a while.
Although it was on the rise, it couldn't be denied that the video game industry was still too much of a mess to truly meddle around with.
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Eisner happened to be right, the video game industry was truly in a mess.
Of course, it was a mess brought about by the recently released Flappy Birds.
This 4th-generation video game opened their eyes to what things could be. Not knowing that it was actually from the more advanced 6th generation all along.
Of course, there was a lot to take from the game but unlike the general public, the video game development side of things was much focused on the GameKeys that contained them.
It was mostly the lurking third-party game developers that felt this way though.
These cartridge alternatives were their shot at reliving their Atari 2600 glory days.
If they could get their hands on a GameKey, study it, master it, and work with it... they could then have the chance to merchandise their own games.
Of course, they also want to know what makes these 16-bit video games tick.
If they play these special cards right, then they could finally back to the status quo that they sorely missed. Riding the waves of the Creed Games just as they had with Atari.
Unfortunately, these console makers really learned a lot from the 1983 video game market crash.
Admittedly, it was them, the third-party developers, that was partly to blame for the whole debacle.
The unhinged development of low-quality games was really hard to stop with their unsolicited existence.
Times have changed, Nintendo and their fancy NES now have a lock-out chip for their cartridges.
Which begs the question of whether the much-fancier Creed Chaos System has its regulating tactic as well.
The answer was, unfortunately, yes!
Whether it be the console or the Flappy Birds game in their GameKey... there was a roadblock that they can't break, much less understand.
Nintendo had tried their shot much earlier than them yet they were getting to nowhere.
Everybody was putting their best minds forward but to no avail.
They just found themselves looking at screens with these randomly changing and dancing red-green characters.
Creed Games called it the Creed Chaos System and the rest of the lurking video game developers finally knew why!
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Without a doubt, the influence of Flappy Birds was ramping up.
Flappily but surely... it was getting to wherever Alexander was truly intending it to be...
It might also have been spurring things that weren't in his original intentions.
Well, what can he do...
At the very least, he'll be better than how the overwhelmed Dong Nguyen had reacted to what came his way.