There were many possible reasons for the generally low quality of indie gas. Takayuki personally believed the biggest reason was that ga developers had entered a creative bottleneck period.
Every industry has its boom periods and its downturns—this is completely normal.
However, if a downturn isn’t restrained in ti, it can easily spiral into a vicious cycle.
It’s like a restaurant: its food used to be good, but over ti—perhaps people’s tastes changed, or perhaps quality slipped just a little—revenue inevitably declined.
Once revenue drops, food quality may decline further. Fewer custors co, revenue drops again, quality worsens again.
Back and forth like this, and the restaurant eventually shuts down.
To stop this kind of decline, simply improving quality isn’t enough—you need so unconventional solutions.
Right now, the indie ga scene didn’t seem to have many people capable of coming up with such unconventional ideas.
People naturally want to move upward. Not everyone is willing to stay in indie developnt forever.
Talented developers are gradually recruited by large companies. Those without much talent tend to produce weaker indie gas.
The people who can truly stick to their original intentions—who only want to make good gas without demanding big returns—are ultimately very few.
And the biggest strength of indie gas should be diversity—not following the standardized assembly-line formulas of major studios.
A few days later, Bellrade reported the causes he had uncovered to Takayuki.
They were largely in line with Takayuki’s earlier guesses.
Good developers had been heavily recruited away by companies like Sury Electronics and Micfox.
That was why Micfox and Sury Electronics had been making frequent big moves lately—their talent pools were indeed growing larger.
The downside, of course, was that the indie ga scene had begun to shrink.
"President, the indie ga circle is experiencing a serious gap in talent right now. Only a handful of well-known indie developers are still insisting on making gas and publishing on our platform. The rest have either already joined big companies or are trying to. Indie gas may slowly disappear in the future."
Takayuki shook his head. "They won’t disappear. There will always be new people stepping in—just like with independent films. But it’s true that the scene is shrinking right now."
"So should we just wait for new people to erge?" Bellrade asked.
"Of course not. We need to act proactively. Indie gas are an important part of the video ga industry. This segnt cannot disappear or decline casually—otherwise, diversity in talent can’t be guaranteed."
Developers who all co from standardized academic backgrounds and enter big companies tend to gradually lose creativity.
For the sake of corporate profits, they focus entirely on sales and monetization. As for diversity in gas? Sorry—that’s no longer a consideration.
"Are ga developnt competitions still being held recently?" Takayuki asked.
"They are."
"How big are they?"
"Each competition has around three to four hundred participants."
Takayuki smacked his lips. "That’s a bit small."
Bellrade suggested, "What about increasing the prize money? Would that encourage more people to participate in ga developnt?"
"Increasing prize money won’t help much," Takayuki replied. "I want to increase the diversity of indie ga types. Raising prizes alone won’t do much—but go ahead and increase them for now. I’ll think of other thods. By the way, when is the next ga developnt competition?"
"In half a month. It’ll be held in London."
"Good. I’ll be there in person. I want to personally see how everyone’s gas turn out."
"You’ll serve as a judge yourself? That should attract a lot of people."
Takayuki said, "That counts as a form of indirect attraction. I still need to think of other approaches."
"Understood. I’ll make the arrangents."
Bellrade worked efficiently. That sa afternoon Japan ti, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt released an official announcent on its platform:
Ga producer, President of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt, Standing Honorary Chairman of the World Ga Developers Federation, and Lifeti Achievent Honoree in World Ga History,
Mr. Takayuki will personally attend the indie ga developnt competition and serve as a judge to evaluate the gas.
This imdiately sparked heated discussion in the gaming community.
A figure like Takayuki attending in person was huge news. Many indie developers with strong ambitions—so of whom had previously felt such competitions were a waste of ti—imdiately booked flights to London upon hearing the announcent.
In Japan, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt also issued a separate dostic notice.
Any developer with a history of indie ga developnt could have a special flight arranged by Gastar to London, with round-trip travel expenses fully covered.
Even those without indie developnt experience—but with strong ideas and creativity—could also participate. Gastar didn’t mind spending that money.
As for Takayuki himself, he was at ho, playing gas while thinking about the indie ga competition.
Relying solely on a competition to discover more indie developers was still quite difficult.
The scale was small, participation limited.
The number of people who could actually develop gas was also limited—but Takayuki believed people had a strong desire to express themselves.
The question was: how to let that desire be expressed?
Ah—one solution was to further lower the barrier to ga developnt, allowing people with strong ideas but weaker technical skills to participate as well.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was a workaround.
Another idea was to let developers from big companies participate too.
By issuing special certification credentials and adding value to their résumés, even developers who only wanted to improve future job prospects might be willing to join indie competitions just to polish their profiles.
Still, this only treated the symptoms, not the root problem. Indie gas needed diversity.
Click.
While thinking, Takayuki accidentally pressed the wrong button on the controller. The in-ga character died instantly, and GA OVER appeared on the screen.
With patience, Takayuki started a new round.
From not far away, the faint sound of a baby being soothed could be heard.
His mother was in the baby’s room, taking care of his daughter. Yuko adored her granddaughter to no end—she even felt that a professional nanny couldn’t compare to herself. Every ti, she made the nanny stand aside and watch, collecting over a million yen a month in salary.
The nanny, anwhile, was nervous—afraid she might lose her job—so she did everything she could to appear more professional and assist Yuko in caring for the baby.
"Takayuki, you’re carrying a heavy burden on your mind."
Aya ca over, gently leaning against his side.
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