The release of Resident Evil didn't cause a huge sensation at first, but the online discussion around it was surprisingly strong.
Horror gas were never a particularly large genre to begin with, but Resident Evil couldn't be classified as a pure horror ga anyway. At the very least, it toned down the jump scares and instead focused more on building tension throughout gaplay.
Zombies in the ga were concrete, visible threats — not invisible ghosts or spirits that creep up on you silently and make players feel constantly unsettled.
So after the first week, most players who had finished the ga were eager to share their experiences online.
And as the internet continued to develop, this was no longer the age of "too many images kill the bandwidth." More and more people were starting to upload and share videos of their gaplay.
Following Takayuki's recomndation, Bob had launched not only a subscription-based video service, but also a dedicated video-sharing platform.
While this platform had entered the ga relatively late and missed the largest share of the market, it had still managed to beco part of the second tier of the industry. Especially within the gaming category, many players still preferred using the Facebook-integrated video platform to share their gaming content.
So players, after playing Resident Evil, beca organic promoters, recomnding the ga through their personal video channels or blogs.
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"Hey everyone, today I want to recomnd a ga to you. It's the latest release from the world's greatest ga company — Gastar Electronic Entertainnt. Now, this ga is labeled as horror, but I promise you, it's not that scary at all. It's a great ga that I think you'll all enjoy! (Though maybe not suitable for little kids.)"
[Big Recomndation: Resident Evil!]
Posts like these, videos like these — people were passionately promoting Resident Evil.
To the uninford, it might have looked like Gastar was hiring bots to astroturf the ga.
But anyone who had actually played Resident Evil, and didn't have an especially low scare tolerance, would find themselves genuinely impressed.
The ga's tense atmosphere kept players constantly on edge, while carefully placed breathing room gave them just enough space to relax — only to crank up the tension again monts later. This ebb and flow of adrenaline was incredibly addictive.
Among those playing the ga was Ueto Hayakawa.
As the president of Surei Electronics, one might assu he no longer had ti to play gas. But he still made ti to study Gastar's titles whenever possible — because every ga from Gastar set a new industry benchmark.
Especially anything supervised by Takayuki — it had to be taken seriously.
After completing the ga, Hayakawa could only sigh in admiration.
Takayuki must have so kind of deep understanding of human psychology.
The pacing was excellent, the content engaging, and the T-virus zombie setting was uniquely compelling — not to ntion all the interesting gaplay systems layered on top.
Puzzles, exploration, collection, tension — every elent was carefully integrated.
Could his own team accomplish sothing like this? Honestly, probably not yet. They simply didn't have the experience. And this wasn't sothing you could just copy either — if it were, great directors and novelists wouldn't be so rare.
That said, the T-virus and zombie outbreak setting definitely had room for imitation.
It wasn't sothing to worry about from a copyright standpoint — change the na and visual style a little, and it's good to go.
Just in the past week, Hayakawa had already seen hundreds of posts online discussing the T-virus.
It sparked far more discussion than many other recent ga releases.
Perhaps it was because the ga felt strangely close to reality, while also being fantastical enough to engage the imagination.
So posts discussed what people would do if a real zombie outbreak happened.
Others told fake personal stories — like soone claiming they'd encountered symptoms like the ones in the ga, and had narrowly avoided infection because they hadn't been bitten.
Replies imdiately flooded in, urging the poster to call the police, warning that a zombie outbreak was already in progress.
In this kind of environnt, it was obvious that players were fascinated by both the ga and the zombie setting.
Hayakawa realized that even if the ga's sales didn't match so of Takayuki's previous titles — and Resident Evil might've been one of the lowest first-week launches of the past few years — the level of discussion and hype was off the charts.
And he was even beginning to see hints of the ga breaking into the mainstream, which was truly surprising.
But it also gave Hayakawa an idea: maybe now was the perfect ti to launch a zombie-thed ga of their own.
It wouldn't even need a massive investnt. As long as they released it while the buzz was still high, it could attract zombie fans and ride the trend.
anwhile, back at Gastar HQ, Takayuki was also carefully watching online trends.
He no longer fixated on sales numbers.
This ga's budget had been modest — about $30 million — and like past titles, it had helped the team gain valuable developnt experience, while also creating reusable assets for future projects. Those resources would save ti and money down the line, making the return on investnt even stronger.
And based on current montum, hitting one million sales was all but guaranteed — which ant at least $60 million in revenue.
That alone gave Takayuki more than enough motivation to develop a sequel.
As long as players showed enough love for the ga, he was more than happy to keep going.
He had been worried before release — concerned that this genre and setting might not appeal to players in this world. After all, it was from another universe entirely, and horror was a niche genre to begin with.
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