"Quit?"
Takayuki looked at the news online, clearly surprised.
That was fast—too fast.
He wouldn’t have been shocked if this young developer had eventually left Mikfo, but he had expected it to happen at least a year or two later. Choosing to quit now was practically throwing himself onto a burning fire.
This was basically telling players outright that Infinite World was a bad ga, not worth buying at all. That would inevitably damage Mikfo’s product reputation.
Mikfo would definitely try to retaliate—using public opinion, PR pressure, or other ans.
That was standard procedure. Mikfo needed to keep growing, and its risk-control and PR departnts wouldn’t just sit back and let public sentint spiral out of control.
As for Takayuki himself, he planned to just watch the drama unfold. This wasn’t really his problem.
But only a few minutes later, his assistant called.
Soone wanted to speak with him—the developer of Infinite World.
Takayuki froze for a mont, then told his assistant to put the call through.
"Mr. Takayuki, I’m very sorry to disturb you," the young man said on the other end of the line, his voice tense and restrained.
"No, it’s fine," Takayuki replied calmly. "A lot seems to have happened to you recently. Your ga’s reputation doesn’t seem... great."
"Mr. Takayuki, the situation is actually far more complicated than it looks," the young man hurried to explain. "I had a lot of ideas for the ga—many systems and concepts I wanted to realize—but because of technical limitations and tight deadlines, I couldn’t fully bring the ga I envisioned to life."
"That’s normal," Takayuki said. "Mikfo is a textbook comrcial company. They do have long-term vision in their own domains, but when it cos to gas, they’re lacking in so areas."
Myron Case had excellent instincts in semiconductors and electronics—but not in video gas.
Different industries demanded different perspectives. You couldn’t expect a chef to perform surgery.
"Exactly. That’s how I feel too," the young man said bitterly. "I deeply regret choosing to work with Mikfo in the first place. If I could go back, I’d never approach them again."
Back then, he had chosen Mikfo because of their generous investnt.
Only later did he realize that bigger investnts always ca with a price.
That price was losing one’s soul.
At this point, regret didn’t really change anything. What was done was done.
"So," Takayuki asked patiently, "what exactly are you calling about?"
"I was hoping... I don’t know whether you’d be willing to sponsor us," the young man said carefully. "I’m not willing to let Infinite World remain a half-finished product. I want to complete it."
"Hm?"
Takayuki raised an eyebrow.
"Sponsor you? You want to fund continued developnt of Infinite World? Isn’t the copyright owned by Mikfo?"
"No, not at all," the young man replied quickly. "The copyright has always belonged to . My relationship with Mikfo was purely an investnt partnership. They received their returns from the ga, and I received their funding."
That made Takayuki even more surprised.
Mikfo hadn’t cared about owning the ga from the start.
In fact, they might have intended to discard it like trash the mont its comrcial value dried up.
"I insisted on full ownership of my ga from the beginning," the young man continued. "I only granted Mikfo platform distribution rights on their ecosystem."
He’d learned that lesson from both Mikfo’s own history and countless business case studies.
Myron Case had once been forced out after losing controlling shares of Red Fruit. Hack Brown of Brown Entertainnt had suffered a similar fate.
These cases were emphasized repeatedly in business education: never give up absolute control for short-term gains.
Right now, the young man was incredibly thankful he’d stuck to that principle.
Of course, it also helped that Mikfo genuinely didn’t care about ga ownership.
Otherwise, they could have easily threatened to pull funding unless he surrendered the rights.
"I didn’t expect Mikfo to not even own your ga," Takayuki said with interest.
"So you left Mikfo with the ga itself and want to keep developing Infinite World? What’s your plan going forward? Paid DLC to make money?"
"Yes," the young man replied. "But before that, I want to restore the ga’s reputation through a period of free content updates."
Restore its reputation...
That really did echo No Man’s Sky.
"Go on," Takayuki said. "Tell your ideas—your long-term plan."
"Ah—yes, yes!" The young man froze for a second, then imdiately beca excited.
Takayuki hadn’t rejected him outright!
From the mont he made the call, he’d been terrified of that possibility. If Gastar Electronic Entertainnt said no, he didn’t know where else he could go.
He doubted any other company would be willing to clean up this ss.
Why spend that money when you could just make a new ga instead?
Mikfo had already made that choice—they were happy to invest in his next project, but had zero interest in pouring more money into an already released ga.
"Here’s the situation, Mr. Takayuki," the young man said earnestly. "The ga is still in a very early state, but the foundation is solid. My next step is to deeply improve AI-driven planetary generation."
"I’ve realized that purely random generation leads to wildly inconsistent aesthetics. But if we develop a structured AI system for world generation, we can solve that problem."
"I also originally planned full online multiplayer. It was nearly finished, but we got stuck on conflicts between core systems. Give enough ti, and I know we can complete it."
"Then there’s narrative depth—expanding the story, adding more interdinsional civilizations."
"I also want to add construction systems, letting players build structures, along with farming, industrial production, infrastructure developnt..."
"And I also plan to—"
Takayuki listened patiently.
He had to admit, these plans were genuinely solid. Based on the roadmap alone, they could indeed make the ga much more enjoyable.
"And all of this," Takayuki asked, "you’re planning to update for free?"
"Well... aside from major story expansions," the young man hesitated, "I’m planning to make all of it free..."
His heart began to pound.
So much free content ant essentially burning Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s money.
Would Takayuki accept that?
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