In one of the endings of Final Fantasy XIII Versus, if you complete a large number of prerequisite quests in the early stages, the main storyline will open up a new branching route.
Later on, that branch becos a new ending—and this new ending is officially declared a happy ending.
The prince and the princess live happily together, and jointly govern a newly rebuilt nation.
When Murakami Kazuo reached that ending, he was pleasantly surprised.
Because in the past, the Final Fantasy series had never had an official, proper happy ending.
Getting Gastar Electronic Entertainnt to give a joyful, complete ending had always been harder than climbing to the sky.
But this ti, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt seed to have suddenly changed its nature, allowing Final Fantasy to finally have a perfect conclusion.
Murakami Kazuo was even a little moved. He quickly published the thod to achieve this perfect ending on his own review website.
Once it was posted, many players who had already cleared the ga discovered there was another ending—an actually perfect one—and they couldn’t sit still anymore. One after another, they reopened Final Fantasy XIII Versus, refusing to stop until they achieved that perfect ending at least once.
Clearly, quite a lot of players in this world still prefer a perfect ending.
They feel that way the story is properly complete, instead of being a tragic open ending that leaves people restless and frustrated.
Others felt that real life was already hard enough—there was no need to experience upsetting plotlines in a ga as well.
So when Final Fantasy XIII Versus first launched, those players didn’t even consider it. They thought, Final Fantasy always ends in tragedy—playing it would just be depressing.
Better to wait. No need to play it right away. Wait until there’s a discount, and when you’re in a better mood, then try it.
But now that word of a perfect happy ending was spreading online, those players also couldn’t sit still, and started preparing to pay for it.
An officially confird perfect ending—sothing extrely rare in Final Fantasy. Not playing it would feel like a loss.
As a result, Final Fantasy XIII Versus maintained its hype for nearly another month, making other ga companies feel utterly stifled.
Sure, your ga is fun—fine. But isn’t it enough for players to be enthusiastic for one week, or two?
Gastar Electronic Entertainnt clearly wasn’t satisfied. They kept pulling out new tricks to keep the heat going. In the end, Final Fantasy XIII Versus soared past ten million sales and still didn’t stop, making other ga companies nauseated just watching.
Who plays like that? If you play like that, how are we supposed to survive?
Fortunately, a ga’s popularity will eventually fade. Gastar Electronic Entertainnt wasn’t a god—there would always be an end. Other companies wouldn’t truly be forced out of business.
After the hype lasted a month and a half, Final Fantasy XIII Versus stabilized at seventeen million copies sold, and over the long stretch that followed, it would keep selling steadily.
Two years later, when a big discount arrived, sales could climb again. Earning an absolute fortune was no longer a question—the remaining goal was simply to keep expanding influence.
No sooner had Final Fantasy wrapped up than Takayuki imdiately moved on to tracking and supervising the developnt of GTA 5.
This ga had been developed almost concurrently with Final Fantasy XIII Versus, but its developnt difficulty was clearly higher. It was an open-world ga, and in the later stages they added sandbox-building features, expanding the ga’s scale even further. Judging by the planned release date, it would probably have to wait until the following year.
But that was fine. There were still plenty of other gas on hand. The release rhythm wouldn’t break—each ga was its own cashflow stream, enough to make them rich beyond asure.
While Takayuki was overseeing GTA 5, the "Infinite World" developnt team he had previously absorbed suddenly brought him news.
Their Infinite World could release a major new update. This update would, to a certain degree, enrich the gaplay and make the ga at least worth the price.
Takayuki was sowhat surprised. He had thought it would take them at least one or two years to roughly make up for the earlier shortcomings.
But now, it seed they had repaired so of those regrets ahead of schedule.
"Boss, this is the Infinite World 1.1 update we’ve just completed. This ti we added richer building features, and also online multiplayer. I think these two features can at least fix the ga’s original problem of having too little content."
"Let see." Takayuki spoke with the team lead via video call. The brand-new test build had already been sent to him. He launched the ga, and after the screen flashed, his character appeared on the edge of a wilderness with unlimited materials—here, you could freely use your imagination to build an entire city.
Giving Infinite World a sandbox building mode was a stroke of genius.
In his previous life, No Man’s Sky had also greatly increased its overall playability by modifying its core gaplay and adding sandbox construction.
From the start, Takayuki had advised this team to prioritize online multiplayer and building mode first. The rest could co slowly—no need to rush. After all, you can’t beco fat in one bite. The ga’s reputation had already bottod out, so they might as well go all-in and do their absolute best. It wasn’t like it could get worse than before, right?
Perhaps it was precisely because of that do-or-die attitude that the team’s montum beca even stronger.
The developers this producer brought over were all brimming with drive. Combined with Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s internal Unreal Engine, the ga had practically transford into sothing entirely new.
"Very good." Takayuki nodded.
That was the highest-tier evaluation he could give.
Very few gas earned a "very good" from him.
His own gas aside, there truly weren’t many in this world that he’d call "very good."
To him, "very good" was sothing like the God of War series, the Dark Souls series—top-tier works.
And the gaplay systems this team had fought to build were already quite ingenious.
"Did you also get help from others?" Takayuki asked.
The producer said a little awkwardly, "Yes. I specifically asked people from the Benedict AI Lab to help us improve the AI chanisms for creating planets and civilizations. And I also borrowed ’our’ Stanford squad for a while to help solve a lot of technical problems. Boss, our team is really amazing."
Takayuki automatically ignored the flattery and nodded. "This version really is good. You can release it. But I won’t allocate much promotional resources on my side—at most, I’ll have the Battle platform promote it a bit. Other promotion channels still have their own tasks. As for other ways to improve the ga’s reputation, that’ll depend on you."
Takayuki had already provided this team with a great deal of help.
Manpower, resources, funding—if even with all that they still couldn’t salvage their reputation, then it could only an they weren’t truly suited for the ga developnt industry.
And then Takayuki wouldn’t be polite about it. He’d just have them do the bottom-level work, while specialized ga-developnt tasks would be handed to others.
As for marketing, they had to work for it themselves. This was as far as Takayuki would go.
Still, Takayuki believed the ga could recover.
Based on its current state alone, it was already "playable"—it wouldn’t bore players after a short ti.
So players should naturally spread the word on their own.
"Okay. I’ll work hard, boss. We won’t trouble the company with promotion—we can handle it ourselves."
This producer was also reasonable.
Gastar Electronic Entertainnt truly had already helped them a lot.
Without Gastar Electronic Entertainnt, their team might have dissolved long ago. He might have ended up obediently working as a programr at so obscure small company, then retiring quietly without a ripple.
But Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s appearance was like giving them a chance to rise again.
If even then they still couldn’t do it well, they would withdraw from the ga developnt circle on their own.
At the very least, they wouldn’t enter the mainstream developnt scene again—they’d accept being an invisible nobody at the bottom.
"Do you have a planned release date for the new version? When the ti cos, contact Bellraid at the Battle platform. He’ll give you a featured recomndation slot on the day."
"Then... how about one week from now? It’ll be just before Christmas. I want to give the players—and ourselves—a gift."
"Alright."
Takayuki agreed.
This Christmas, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt itself wouldn’t be launching a major flagship title, so giving this team a chance to get promoted was fine.
The team imdiately began sharpening their knives—they were already looking forward to fighting hard during the key Christmas release window.
But they also understood clearly: their ga’s reputation had been bad from the start, so they were at a natural disadvantage.
So... as long as they could increase sales by another three to five hundred thousand... no, that was too ambitious. Another one or two hundred thousand would already be enough.
"The boss has agreed! One week from now, on the eve of Christmas, we release Infinite World 1.1!"
After hanging up with Takayuki, the young producer rushed out of the office and excitedly announced the good news to his people.
Everyone imdiately cheered.
They had been waiting a very long ti for this ssage.
Before the call, they had still been worried their new boss would nitpick.
Because they had heard Takayuki was extrely strict—any ga he supervised had to reach very high quality standards to pass his approval, especially the gas he personally produced.
And while there was no precedent for a halfway-adopted project like theirs, they still instinctively imagined Takayuki would treat them just as strictly.
Maybe the new boss would think the ga still didn’t have enough content.
But Takayuki agreed quickly, and they were all thrilled.
In fact, Takayuki was also surprised by their developnt efficiency. And while he was strict about quality control, that depended on what kind of ga it was.
When a ga’s reputation has already collapsed, you can’t apply normal developnt logic.
A reputation-collapse project doesn’t need one or two huge, high-cost repair jobs. It needs steady, long-term effort.
Massive, expensive fixes extend developnt ti—and players who still had a sliver of hope might eventually lose patience and abandon the ga entirely.
For a ga with ruined reputation, you must constantly interact with players and tell them: Look, we’re still working. We haven’t run away. We’re improving the ga with the newest tech. Don’t leave too quickly—there’s an even richer four-dishes-and-soup al waiting for you.
And then before the grand reveal, you serve a bowl of soup first—to steady morale. That was roughly the idea, which is why Takayuki approved an update that "only" added sandbox building and multiplayer.
Takayuki was also a bit curious. He wanted to see whether most players would still be interested in a "reputation recovery" ga like this, or whether they were completely heartbroken and unwilling to touch a scam ga ever again.
One week later, Christmas was approaching, and most countries had already entered a festive mood and atmosphere.
Especially Western countries—most of them celebrated Christmas.
Among them, there was a veteran player at ho, head down, playing the latest gas.
He was a ga enthusiast, and also a sowhat well-known ga reviewer online.
The rise of self-dia had given ordinary people more channels to speak.
Even an ordinary person could beco "dia," and publish their views on certain things.
A ga reviewer like him had erged precisely in this environnt.
Maybe their professionalism couldn’t compare to Murakami Kazuo, but they faithfully served niche groups of players.
They served players by stepping on landmines first—telling them what gas were fun, and what gas were trash.
On his Battle platform library alone, there were already over a thousand different open-world gas.
Among them, Infinite World was an extrely inconspicuous one.
At this mont, he was a bit bored, casually browsing recent news updates on the Battle platform.
And while he was scrolling, Battle suddenly popped up a new recomnded ssage on the hopage.
"Infinite World Version 1.1 officially released—adds brand-new gaplay features. Players are welco to co experience it."
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