Titan Forge launched their first clone: Wing Clash 3D, a rushed and aggressively marketed slingshot game with birds that looked suspiciously like discount versions of Espector's.
Ads flooded social media. Influencers were paid to play it. App store banners screamed "The Next Big Bird Game."
It reached Top 10 in downloads for three days.
Then plummeted.
Review scores tanked. Players noticed the sloppy animations, unoriginal art, and frequent paywalls. One-star reviews called it "soulless," "a blatant ripoff," and "an insult to Furious Birds."
Meanwhile, Furious Birds crossed 12 million downloads.
James didn't even flinch. At Espector, the team was already shifting gears.
"Let them chase shadows," Yuri said as she finalized the internal prototype for their next title. "We're already on the next thing."
February 2011
On Valentine's week, Espector soft-launched Furious Birds Tactics in Southeast Asia.
A turn-based strategy game with hex-grid combat, adorable animations, and surprisingly deep mechanics.
Red a charge ability. Blue could split and surround. Each raccoon boss had distinct AI patterns. It was smart, stylish, and somehow still funny.
Players fell in love instantly.
By the end of the month, it had 1.4 million downloads—without any paid ads.
Titan Forge panicked. They rushed out Feather Force: Global War, a cheap strategy title using bird mercenaries and loot boxes.
It lasted a week in the Top 50. Then vanished.
Furious Birds Tactics hit global launch with 4.7 million players.
March 2011
Espector's expansion was no longer just game development.
They rolled out an in-game World Map. Each new title was now "canon." Players could see how each game's events connected. Yuri built a timeline. Airi made animated shorts. Sam started producing lore teasers with dev blogs.
Community forums lit up. Fanfiction exploded. Cosplays appeared in local conventions.
Meanwhile, Titan Forge released Raccoon Siege: Legacy, a first-person shooter with weapon skins, loot crates, and… raccoons. It was met with confusion and ridicule.
The top YouTube comment on its trailer read:
"Y'all just throwing darts at a whiteboard now."
Espector's original Furious Birds crossed 15 million downloads.
April 2011
Titan Forge doubled down. They tried outbidding Espector on ad space. They launched bot farms to flood the App Store with fake ratings. They bribed small review sites for favorable clone coverage.
It backfired.
Google Play removed Wing Clash 3D for fake installs.
Apple blacklisted two of Titan Forge's shell apps.
Espector Studios? They didn't spend a dime on ads.
Furious Birds Kart was soft-launched mid-April—go-kart racing with signature birds and raccoons, item pickups, wacky track designs, and smooth multiplayer.
Servers were overloaded by day three.
By the end of the month, it had surpassed 6 million players.
May 2011
Industry blogs began running headlines:
"The Furious Birds Phenomenon Isn't Slowing Down."
"Espector: How an Indie Studio Built a Cinematic Game Universe."
"Titan Forge's Clone Factory is Falling Apart."
Venture capitalists tried contacting James.
He ignored them.
Meanwhile, Titan Forge saw internal chaos. Their mobile division reported losses. Board members began questioning Marcus Lang's leadership.
At Espector, James held a quiet team dinner in the same rooftop café where they celebrated their first million.
"I don't want to be the biggest," he told them. "Just the most loved."
Yuri raised a glass. "Then we build what we love. And never settle."
June 2011
Furious Birds Tactics was nominated for two mobile game awards.
Furious Birds Kart was featured on both the App Store and Google Play homepages during summer.
Meanwhile, Titan Forge quietly shelved four upcoming clone projects. They laid off thirty developers and dissolved their influencer department.
Devon Kellerman didn't show up to the monthly executive meeting.
He wouldn't be invited back.
Marcus Lang sat alone at the head of the table that month, silent as the analytics screen showed Furious Birds Universe—a new brand banner under Espector Studios—claiming three out of the top five mobile game slots worldwide.
Their plan had failed.
***
Espector Studios — June 30, 2011
James sat alone in the dim office, the gentle hum of the AC masking the quiet tapping of keys on his wireless keyboard. His monitor was filled with charts, dashboards, and revenue graphs, all painting the same story: they were winning.
He clicked through each game's data, one by one.
Furious Birds (Original)
Total Downloads: 18.3 million
Daily Active Users: 5.7 million
Revenue (ads + in-app): $4.2 million USD (monthly)
Furious Birds Tactics
Total Downloads: 7.9 million
Daily Active Users: 2.4 million
Revenue (cosmetics + campaign unlocks): $2.8 million USD (monthly)
Furious Birds Kart
Total Downloads: 8.1 million
Daily Active Users: 3.1 million
Revenue (skins, track passes): $3.4 million USD (monthly)
FlapFlap Hero
Total Downloads: 27.4 million
Daily Active Users: 10.2 million
Revenue (ads, one-time unlocks, cosmetics): $5.7 million USD (monthly)
Total Monthly Revenue: $16.1 million USD
Espector Studios Net Worth Estimate: $120–135 million USD (and rising fast)
James blinked at the screen. The numbers didn't even feel real anymore.
FlapFlap Hero had ballooned into a cultural phenomenon, far beyond what he originally intended. Simple, addictive, infinitely replayable—it had become the go-to time-killer for every bored student, commuter, and office worker on Earth.
"Twenty-seven million…" he murmured, leaning back in his chair. "Jesus."
The door creaked open.
Yuri stepped in with a mug of coffee in one hand and a thick folder tucked under her arm. She walked straight to his desk and dropped the mug next to the mouse pad.
"You've been staring at those numbers for half an hour," she said.
James chuckled. "I was trying to make sure I didn't hallucinate the twenty-seven million."
Yuri sat across from him, exhaling deeply. "You didn't. And it's going to get worse."
"Worse?"
"I mean bigger. Messier. Crazier. We've already gotten press requests from Bloomberg and the Nikkei. Half the tech blogs are calling FlapFlap Hero the second coming of Snake."
James raised an eyebrow. "Do people still remember Snake?"
Yuri smirked. "Apparently enough to make the comparison."
She handed over the folder labeled:
Internal Expansion Plan — Stage Two.
"What is this?" James looked at the folder.
"It's what we need to do in this company, James," Yuri said.
James opened the folder and took a look at it. It was filled with business analytics, projected growth charts, personnel scaling breakdowns, hiring frameworks, departmental structures, and even a sample budget proposal for operations expansion.
It looked corporate—but in the best way possible. Organized, scalable, and shockingly detailed.
James slowly flipped through the first few pages, scanning line items and resource allocations. There were sections titled IP Growth Strategy, Developer Pipeline Models, and QA Automation Roadmap. All of it built around their games—and their people.
"Wait…" he said, narrowing his eyes. "Where did you learn how to do all this? You have some kind of business degree hiding under that freelance programming title?"
Yuri shrugged, sipping her coffee. "Double majored in Computer Science and Management in Korea. I don't really mention the second part because people assume I'm just the backend girl."
James let out a short laugh. "Well, backend girl, this reads like something out of a McKinsey presentation."
"I interned with a consulting firm once. Hated the people. Loved the frameworks."
He smirked. "No wonder you always talk like you've got five contingency plans for every problem."
"I usually do."
James leaned back again, genuinely impressed. "This is good. Scary good. You're right—we need to scale. I was just trying to ride the wave, keep our heads above water. But this… this is planning to swim laps in open ocean."
Yuri's face softened. "We're hitting the point where if we don't expand, we'll collapse from the inside. Everyone's burning through double workloads. Airi's doing art for three titles. Sam handles PR and narrative. You've got your hands in everything from updates to finance. It's not sustainable anymore."
James nodded slowly, tapping a finger on the folder. "So you're saying we need to grow up."
"I'm saying we need to stop treating ourselves like we're still a four-person indie team. We're a company now. A real one."
He looked down at the revenue charts again. Then at the forecast projections she'd written out—six months, one year, two years.
Every instinct from his past life as a CEO agreed with her. She wasn't just thinking ahead—she was laying down the path before anyone else even knew they needed it.
James closed the folder and looked up at her. "Alright. We do this your way."
Yuri's lips curled into a small, rare smile. "We'll need an operations director. A studio manager. Maybe even—dare I say it—a legal department."
James groaned. "Please don't say HR."
Yuri grinned. "Eventually. And a big office."