At this mont, Gastar Park had already beco the most envied attraction in the eyes of countless amusent park owners.
A country's Pri Minister was publicly promoting it—and during the Olympic Gas, no less.
That level of publicity was maxed out.
Even if you had the money, you might not be able to buy that kind of promotion.
They could only imagine: if their own parks ever got publicity like this, they'd probably laugh in their sleep.
However, the Japanese Pri Minister's endorsent also drew criticism from the Olympic Committee.
They felt that such behavior turned an event ant to symbolize public good and peace into a tool for profit.
But there wasn't much they could do—at most they could vent their dissatisfaction in so dia, but that was it.
At its core, the Olympics is a business too. The Olympic Committee didn't survive all these years on idealism alone—they need to make money as well.
...
...
Still, no one had expected the Pri Minister of Japan himself to personally promote an amusent park. That really was pushing the limits.
Were video gas really that popular now? Popular enough to make a Pri Minister do this?
So mbers of the Olympic Committee had already begun to reassess Gastar Electronic Entertainnt.
It seed this company wasn't quite what they had imagined.
At this point, Gastar was clearly the biggest beneficiary.
Just on that day, search volus for Gastar-related keywords exploded online.
Many people were frustrated: why hadn't Gastar gone public in the U.S.?
If it had, they would've driven its stock price through the roof.
A company endorsed by the governnt clearly wasn't ordinary.
anwhile, Gastar Park's related sweepstakes also saw a massive surge in participation.
Previously, each giveaway had about 30,000 to 50,000 participants, all competing for just a few dozen opening-day tickets.
But now, that number had surged into the hundreds of thousands.
Still, only about two thousand people t Gastar's eligibility criteria.
And the lottery portion depended heavily on luck.
Even so, players were still desperate for a chance to experience Gastar Park.
If they couldn't attend opening day, they'd settle for the second day.
Soon, Day 2 tickets were sold out within just half a day.
And Day 2 had 100,000 tickets available.
That ant the second day would see double the number of guests as opening day. Wait tis across all attractions would roughly double too—but even that didn't dampen players' enthusiasm.
It wasn't just those who missed out on Day 1 tickets rushing to buy Day 2 tickets.
Even players who had already won Day 1 tickets were choosing to go again the next day.
After all, they were already in Japan—it wouldn't make sense to only visit for a single day.
Back in the day, Gastar Carnival had lasted several days too.
Many players bought multi-day passes back then.
With Day 2 selling out in half a day, Day 3's 100,000 tickets sold out in just one day.
Then Days 4, 5, 6, 7... all the way up to Day 14 followed. Each day's 100,000 tickets sold out within one to two days.
Player enthusiasm had reached a whole new level.
Seeing the situation, Gastar Interactive's the park operations team imdiately reached out to the Tokyo governnt for help.
The visitor volu was getting so out of hand that Gastar's staff could no longer maintain order alone.
So they called in the governnt.
This many tourists also ant a massive amount of revenue flowing into governnt hands. When Tokyo officials received the report from Gastar Interactive, they were so excited they nearly jumped for joy.
They imdiately organized a team of order-keeping park staff, urgently calling in experienced personnel from various regions to Tokyo.
Gastar was paying competitive wages, and the Tokyo governnt added extra bonuses for the ergency recruits.
They also promised: if any of these temporary workers wanted to stay long-term, Gastar would prioritize hiring them.
In a short ti, players, tourists, service staff, and governnt employees all surged into Tokyo.
Officials in other cities were dumbfounded.
Was this park really that magical?
Why didn't the parks they had introduced through investnt have the sa kind of appeal?
So of their parks were clearly larger than Gastar Park, and had more attractions too.
But what they didn't understand was this: such a terrifying volu of visitors wasn't created overnight. It ca from over twenty years of presence and reputation in the video ga market.
Every player had dread of a true gaming-thed amusent park.
And once they learned that the park had been created by the undisputed giant of the gaming industry—Gastar Interactive Entertainnt— their excitent beca impossible to contain.
"Honestly, the traffic to Gastar Park is way more than I expected," said Takayuki, as he looked at the freshly updated data in front of him with so amazent.
There were still two days left before the park's official opening.
Yet tickets had already been sold out through the next two weeks.
And people were still buying.
Since tickets for later dates no longer had purchase restrictions, anyone could buy them—so the number of buyers exploded.
At first, scalpers tried to buy up tickets for resale.
But after Gastar implented ID-bound purchases and banned ticket transfers, scalpers pretty much disappeared.
While they couldn't be eliminated entirely, the system was enough to prevent widespread scalping and let more real fans get their tickets at normal prices.
Standing next to Takayuki, a marketing executive sighed and said, "President, I think we were too conservative. I really think we should ride this montum and add more special events."
"Special events?"
"Yeah, like developer et-and-greets at the park, or live concerts of ga soundtracks. Things like that would definitely increase player engagent."
"Hm. That's a good idea. Go for it. We can even invite so of the actors who've worked with us before to make appearances. Don't worry about the money."
Takayuki was clearly in high spirits.
Seeing that so many players loved the idea of a ga-thed park made all the effort worthwhile.
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