Outside the company, discussions about this new studio were everywhere.The focus was mainly on two things: Lorenzo, and the fact that more than a hundred million dollars had been invested.
As for the ga producer himself, he had almost faded into the background.
Many self-proclaid "industry professionals" launched wave after wave of analyses across various dia outlets.
They dissected everything—from the company’s capital reserves, to the résumé of the core producer "Mr. Nintendo," to the size of the developnt team.
Their final conclusion?
This company probably wouldn’t make much money.
Even if it did, it would likely take decades just to break even.
Investing several hundred million dollars like this was, in their view, a bad deal.
Most of these so-called professionals were really just hinting to other capital tycoons: invest in instead. They claid to have more potential than Nintendo, more experience developing large-scale gas, and ready-made teams—unlike Nintendo, who had to scramble just to assemble staff.
And on top of that, rumors said that over half of the people they hired were fresh graduates.
Just that?
A company like this, boldly claiming from the start that it would make a large-scale ga?
It was enough to make people laugh out loud.
As for the battle royale genre itself—so far, no company had really made money from it.A brand-new company stepping in and talking about profitability right away just sounded ridiculous.
While the outside world was full of doubt, inside the newly founded Nintendo company, things were calm.
The employees had no ti to care about external discussions.
If they didn’t finish their tasks, it could affect their bonuses.
Putting aside what kind of ga the company would ultimately make, no overti, fast-paced work, and bonuses—that alone was sothing most companies couldn’t offer.
From that perspective, the boss was excellent.
There was just one thing that confused everyone.
From the first eting until now, the boss had always worn a giant smiling mask.
Wasn’t he hot?
Everyone wondered about that.
Why was this Mr. Nintendo so secretive? Even his voice sounded like it had been altered.
Hiding things from the outside world was understandable—but why hide even from his own employees?
No one could figure it out.
Still, a good boss was a good boss.
"The restriction on players should be that after a certain period of ti, the map gradually shrinks, forcibly squeezing players toward a central area."
Takayuki, wearing the oversized smiling mask, stood behind a programr, giving hands-on guidance.
"Shrink the map? So... destroy the entire map? That sounds technically difficult."
The programr looked troubled.
"Not at all. It’s actually very simple. Just define a circle in the code, set a fixed ti for it to slowly shrink, and players outside the circle won’t be eliminated instantly—they’ll gradually lose health. That’s enough."
"Oh... I see. That does sound much simpler. I’ll try implenting it."
The programr imdiately understood—this really was far easier than he’d imagined. It was just adding a few gaplay chanics.
Marcus often observed Takayuki’s movents.
One mont, he’d be in the programming area guiding feature developnt; the next, he’d be over with the art team, directing visual design.
The code was kept as concise and efficient as possible, without unnecessary complexity.The art style leaned heavily toward a cartoon look, reducing workload while avoiding blandness.
Marcus increasingly felt that developnt was progressing incredibly smoothly.
Was the strength of the world’s number-one indie ga creator really this overwhelming?
He had assud that Mr. Nintendo was more of a lone wolf, probably not very good at team-based ga developnt.
Being favored by Lorenzo had seed like winning the lottery.
But judging from the progress over the past month, Lorenzo’s vision had clearly been far ahead of the curve.
Mr. Nintendo’s managent skills and foresight in ga developnt were unparalleled.
Normally, a ga would go through project approval, then spend months defining its overall direction and core gaplay.
Even then, those directions would often change repeatedly during developnt.
After all, not every gaplay idea works the mont it’s conceived.
So producers propose ideas that are simply too unrealistic, causing the final product to deviate drastically from expectations.
Infinite World had been exactly that kind of case.
The gap between its marketing and its actual content had been enormous.
If not for its later reputation turnaround, it would’ve ended up as just another infamous flop.
Of course, it was also lucky enough to fall under Gastar Electronic Entertainnt’s wing and receive their support.
That luck mattered too.
But Mr. Nintendo’s designs?
They were mature from the start.
Sotis, when programrs ca up with overly complex chanics, Mr. Nintendo would proactively suggest simplifying them—preserving gaplay depth while implenting everything with the cleanest possible code.
At this pace, finishing the ga within six months actually seed plausible.
To be honest, Fortnite itself wasn’t that hard to develop.
A hundred players on a large map, a shrinking "storm" zone, building and dismantling chanics, and matches capped at around thirty minutes.
With just those elents, the ga already had a solid prototype.
The rest was all about adding polish and detail.
Lorenzo had waved his hand early on and spent twenty million dollars to purchase a two-year full-feature license of the Unreal Engine, dramatically boosting developnt efficiency.
With Unreal Engine backing them, developnt speed skyrocketed.
In just two more months, the basic frawork and playable prototype were finished—it was already perfectly playable.
At that point, Lorenzo stepped in again, securing Morgan Group cloud server services at a favorable price, ensuring there would be no network issues when players went online.
Morgan Group had built its foundation on operating systems and internet infrastructure. When it ca to networking services, they claid the top spot—and few companies dared challenge that claim.
By the third month of developnt, Fortnite was essentially complete.
The efficiency was astonishing.
And all of this had been done with just over a hundred people.
"Excellent work, everyone. You’ve made a great ga. If nothing unexpected happens, we’ll begin the first round of online testing in one week, followed by official release. If everything goes smoothly, we might witness a miracle in two months."
Three months.
Three months with almost no overti—and they had completed a high-quality ga.
All hundred-plus developers felt slightly dazed.
They also realized just how simple this battle royale ga really was.
Only a handful of chanics, a cartoon style that didn’t require hyper-realistic visuals, and extrely low hardware demands.
Even laptops from seven or eight years ago could run the ga smoothly.
Marcus himself found it hard to believe.
This ga...
Was it really finished just like that?
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