In the past, a small number of traditional car manufacturers had been skeptical of video gas and even looked down on their influence. So believed that licensing their brand to a video ga would "cheapen" it. But now, they were paying the price—especially after seeing their competitors gain greater brand recognition through partnerships with video gas. These companies could no longer sit back.
To demonstrate their sincerity, so of those once-dismissive automakers offered extrely generous licensing fees, hoping to gain the approval of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt. They even decisively fired the managent staff who had previously led the brand licensing decisions.
Matsuhiro, of course, welcod such benefits with open arms.
This was the battlefield of business. It didn't matter if you looked down on before. Once I've grown to a point where you have to take seriously, you'd better bow your head and offer better terms just to be considered. That's the price of underestimating soone.
While Takayuki was organizing teams for an all-out developnt assault, Matsuhiro spent two months traveling across Europe and successfully negotiated licensing deals with all the major car manufacturers.
Matsuhiro held a position akin to vice president within Gastar, so having her personally handle these negotiations conveyed the highest level of sincerity. The car companies were thrilled, and the whole process went smoothly.
She imdiately inford Takayuki of the good news—and even better, many of those car manufacturers were willing to provide detailed tuning data for each of their car models to make them more appealing in Need for Speed.
Being crafty, Matsuhiro would casually ntion during discussions that "other carmakers" had already submitted their model data. She'd emphasize that the more detailed the data, the more complete the in-ga tuning features would be—and since most racing ga players enjoyed customizing cars, those with more customization options would naturally be more attractive.
...
Hearing this, the car manufacturers that hadn't yet provided data quickly called their technical departnts and handed over everything—eager not to fall behind.
One by one, Matsuhiro played this strategy, and soon the car brands were competing among themselves—practically begging to submit every possible spec to Gastar.
Of course, these were all publicly accessible specifications and had nothing to do with corporate secrets. The manufacturers weren't foolish enough to hand over confidential information to a ga company.
Still, this data—while technically obtainable by buying and testing the cars—would have taken considerable manpower and ti to gather. The automakers providing it directly saved Gastar a great deal of effort.
Takayuki was in high spirits. The developnt ti for Need for Speed, which was initially projected at 18–24 months, could now be shortened by three to four months thanks to this.
The U.S. team responsible for Need for Speed was thrilled as well—their efficiency had received a huge boost.
With car brand licensing completed quickly, the next step was to negotiate the football-related licenses.
As for gun licenses, that wasn't a big issue. Most people couldn't accurately na or recognize all firearm models anyway.
For example, in the original world, there was a popular battle royale ga where a bolt-action sniper rifle called the 98K beca iconic. Once that ga went viral, players started referring to any vintage bolt-action sniper rifle as "the 98K"—a reflection of how rarely most gars encountered actual firearms.
Even in countries where guns weren't banned, average citizens still had limited exposure. And even if they did, they were usually only familiar with a few popular models.
So there was no rush to license guns. In fact, there were clever ways to sidestep licensing altogether: just tweak the appearance slightly and give it a na that's vaguely similar. That was usually enough to avoid legal risk.
But with football stars, tournants, car brands, and sports leagues, that wasn't possible. These were widely recognized, mass-market properties. Unless licensing negotiations failed entirely, it was best to secure the rights properly.
Takayuki handed over the developnt of Need for Speed, FIFA Football, and Counter-Strike to the U.S. teams. Because of this, those teams had to expand again—many talented people scrambled to join Gastar Electronic Entertainnt. The company had beco a kind of industry holy land; countless people dread of working there.
anwhile, the dia heavily reported on the situation, which made Suri Electronics nervous. They suspected Gastar was preparing to launch a new arms race—expanding manpower and simultaneously developing multiple big titles to compete.
Suri had no choice but to respond.
Their ga division was still performing well, which was why it had survived this long. But if they suffered repeated setbacks at the hands of Gastar, it would surely provoke dissatisfaction among shareholders.
As a result, Hayakawa Ueto once again urged their partner studios—especially YOO—to ramp up their developnt efforts. Suri even offered to temporarily reduce their revenue share from ga sales to motivate partners to produce more content.
However, aside from YOO, many studios showed little enthusiasm. They had already settled into a stable developnt rhythm, and disrupting it for Suri's sake seed unwise.
External discussions and rival panic did nothing to affect the operations inside Gastar.
The U.S. teams quickly expanded, eventually growing to more than 1,300 staff. They were then split into three groups, each dedicated to one of the "gun, car, ball" titles. The U.S. branch itself also expanded.
It wasn't that Takayuki didn't trust Japanese teams with the developnt—it was just that for Western-style gas, it made more sense to let Western developers take the lead. The cultural gap between Asia and the West was significant, and while he could force Japanese teams to adopt Western styles, it would ultimately feel awkward and lower team morale.
Besides, it was all under one roof—whether dostic or international, it was still the sa pot of at.
Need for Speed and Counter-Strike quickly entered full-scale developnt. The FIFA football ga was progressing slightly slower—not because of licensing, but because football gas required a massive amount of motion-capture data, making them more complex than the other two titles.
Reviews
All reviews (0)