"What has the president been up to lately? He hasn’t been in the company at all—where did he go?"
Inside the headquarters of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt, several ga developnt departnt heads were gathered together, chatting casually.
Recently, work at Gastar Electronic Entertainnt hadn’t been particularly busy.
Every ga developnt plan was progressing steadily. After finishing work on Final Fantasy XIII, Takayuki had begun arranging developnt for the online ga Final Fantasy XIV.
That project was still in its early stages, so there was no rush.
Most of the other projects were also in their initial phases, which kept everyone’s mindset fairly relaxed.
That gave them ti to gather together and talk about recent industry news—and about where their president had disappeared to.
"No idea. It really has been over a month since we last saw him. Director Aya isn’t around either—do you think they secretly went on a honeymoon?"
"That’s pretty likely. To be honest, the two of them have never really had proper ti alone. The president is always busy making gas, and Director Aya is always obsessed with researching ga technology. Their personalities are actually quite similar."
"So what do we do now?"
"Just keep developing gas as usual. But speaking of which, there is a piece of news that’s worth paying attention to."
"What is it?"
"That indie developer called ’Nintendo Damn It Is the Ruler of the World’ tead up with forr Morgan Group CEO Lorenzo to start a ga company."
"Oh, I know about that. That Nintendo guy’s gas are pretty interesting. Didn’t expect him to suddenly start a company—and I heard their first ga is a battle royale?"
"Battle royale, huh. Has anyone here really looked into that genre before?"
Everyone shook their heads together.
That genre hadn’t been mainstream before. While so companies had tried making similar gas, most of them never achieved notable success.
The best case seed to be a battle royale ga that suddenly beca popular in South Korea—but even that only stayed hot locally for a short ti, with little enthusiasm from other countries.
Not far away, Eri Hayasawa was eating breakfast. By coincidence, she overheard the conversation between the departnt heads and felt completely clear-headed about it.
She was one of the very few people who knew about Takayuki’s alternate account.
"That ga’s marketing is incredibly aggressive. It’s even snatching away so of our advertising resources. Could this be another powerful competitor?"
"Possibly. That company has the forr Morgan Group CEO backing it—money definitely won’t be a problem."
"Then we should probably be cautious. That indie developer is very capable. There’s no direct competition with us right now, but that doesn’t an there won’t be in the future."
"If the president were here, maybe he could give us so direction—or even lead us to develop a similar ga to counter them."
At this mont, the group had clearly begun treating Takayuki’s alternate-account company as a hypothetical enemy, even considering whether they should preemptively counter it.
However, with Takayuki absent, there wasn’t much they could actually do.
One of the departnt heads contacted Minori Matsuhashi, the company’s second-in-command, to see if she could get in touch with Takayuki.
Potential competitors still needed to be taken seriously.
But Matsuhashi responded that there was no need to worry. That company wouldn’t pose a threat—as long as they continued developing gas according to Takayuki’s existing plans, everything would be fine.
After hearing that, the departnt heads dropped the subject.
Or rather, they hadn’t been especially concerned to begin with.
Even if that company really did rise up, they were confident it could never rival Gastar Electronic Entertainnt.
That confidence ca from nearly thirty years of accumulated reputation and achievents—and the fact that Gastar had almost never released a truly bad ga.
So many major corporations had tried to challenge Gastar’s position and failed.
With that, they returned to developing gas in peace, no longer paying attention to the matter.
anwhile, inside Suri Electronics, Uehito Hayakawa frowned as he looked at the latest internet news coming out of the United States.
Gastar Electronic Entertainnt could afford to ignore challengers.
Suri Electronics couldn’t.
If it were just small-scale competition, that would be fine—but this ti, the background was huge.
Lorenzo was backing them.
If this company grew successfully, it might beco another Mikuford.
Back then, Mikuford had nearly knocked Suri Electronics out of the number-two position. If Myron Kays hadn’t ntally collapsed and given up on gas, Hayakawa might still be locked in an expensive, long-term battle for second place.
He imdiately summoned the person in charge of Suri’s ga division and ordered him to strictly monitor and suppress the rise of this new company called Nintendo.
Since the other side was preparing to develop a battle royale ga, Suri Electronics couldn’t afford to lag behind.
Coincidentally, this also seed to be a blind spot in Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s portfolio—maybe there was even a chance to make so profit here.
The core of battle royale gaplay was relatively fixed: a group of people fight until only one individual or team survives.
But how to achieve that, and how to force players into conflict—that was the real challenge. So far, no one had co up with truly outstanding ideas.
Still, Suri Electronics had plenty of talent.
Before long, soone proposed forcing player conflict through survival resource constraints.
For example, adding various strongholds across the map, controlled by AI. Players would need to obtain food, water, weapons, and other supplies from these locations—and then struggle to survive until the end.
Others suggested adding the popular zombie elent.
Gastar’s Resident Evil had done extrely well and helped popularize zombies again. Adding zombies could increase tension and atmosphere.
Once ga developnt entered a systematic process, creativity itself could also be "systematized."
In just a few days, Suri Electronics had established the basic direction for their battle royale ga. All that remained was to accelerate developnt.
As for Mikuford—
They had already completely given up.
Myron Kays had lost all interest in the gaming industry. His focus was now entirely on his company’s electronic products.
Fashionable. Light luxury. High-end aesthetic.
That was what he wanted to pursue—making money from brand premiums.
Video gas?
Sorry. Not familiar.
I’m already selling it off, and you’re telling there are competitors?
Still, he couldn’t help but envy the money behind that new company.
Lorenzo had publicly declared an initial investnt of one billion dollars.
As expected of a forr richest man.
But wasn’t he overestimating that indie ga developer a bit?
Just what thods did that guy use to convince a big shot like Lorenzo to invest?
Relying on that battle royale ga that clearly didn’t look very promising?
He really couldn’t understand it.
If that money were invested in him, Mikuford could have developed much faster.
Or better yet—
Why not just use that one billion dollars to buy up the ga division he was planning to split off anyway?
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