The warm-up campaign for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners lasted a total of two weeks. After those two weeks, Tokyo Television scheduled an entire Sunday afternoon to broadcast the animation in one continuous run.
This was the first time since Tokyo Television's founding that a complete animated series had been aired in its entirety within a single day.
Takayuki himself had not insisted that the new station director concentrate the broadcast into one day.
However, once Director Oki learned that the animation would also be released on online streaming platforms—and that those platforms would drop the entire series at once—he decided to follow suit and air the whole thing in one day.
Strictly speaking, this approach didn't maximize the animation's overall popularity.
But letting viewers binge the entire series in one sitting was another kind of attraction.
There were plenty of viewers interested in Cyberpunk 2077 who normally weren't especially keen on following animated series.
However, if an animation could be fully aired in a single day, they might have enough patience to give it a try.
On Facebook's streaming platform, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners' promotional banner was placed directly on the homepage.
At first, shareholders were dissatisfied with this forced insertion of an animated series recommendation, which squeezed advertising space and reduced ad revenue.
The advertising and recommendation slots occupied by Cyberpunk: Edgerunners were worth at least several million dollars.
But Bob pushed back against all objections.
As Takayuki's strongest supporter—combined with his status as founder and CEO, as well as the company's consistently smooth growth—Bob wielded considerable authority within the company. As a result, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners dominated the advertising and recommendation slots for several consecutive days.
Even people who weren't interested couldn't help but notice the animation.
And when they realized that the total runtime was only three to four hours, many thought they might as well watch it when it aired—idle time was idle time anyway.
Coincidentally, many of them were also Cyberpunk 2077 players. Watching the animation felt like supporting a game they loved, while also learning more about its world.
Meanwhile, over in the United States, the Mickford Company was preparing a major move.
"Mr. Myron Case, I can guarantee you—this is absolutely the best work in the world. With the latest AI computing power and our proprietary random world-generation technology, we can create countless worlds. The territory is practically infinite. In such an endless world, anything is possible. Players will absolutely experience the ultimate level of enjoyment!"
In a small reception room, Myron Case listened as a young man passionately pitched his idea.
No—he wasn't selling himself.
He was selling his product.
And that product was a video game.
A rather strange-looking video game.
In recent years, as industrialized game development matured and sandbox open-world games grew popular, more and more games had begun actively pursuing sandbox-style open worlds.
Even many small development teams were striving to move in this direction.
Open-world games seemed to have become the standard answer for making money.
Especially over the past year, many game companies had begun competing crazily over the sheer size of their open worlds.
Some companies had even developed computer-generated worlds of nearly infinite size—but these worlds were often hollow, nothing more than piles of dull data.
Worse still, as more and more data accumulated, the later-generated worlds became increasingly bizarre, completely detached from anything resembling a normal world.
Yet many people still refused to give up, continuing to chase bigger and more beautiful worlds.
And now, what stood before Myron Case was an infinite world that actually looked quite impressive.
This young man seemed to have found a technical breakthrough, successfully generating an endless world.
Each world was connected by teleportation gates, allowing players to freely explore this infinite expanse.
Thanks to the convenience of AI computation, once AI could already generate lifelike NPCs, randomly generating terrain and entire worlds was no longer out of reach.
It was just that no one had thought of it before.
This young man had.
"So, what do you think of this game?" Myron Case asked, ignoring the young man's enthusiastic pitch and turning instead to consult the head of his company's game development division.
"Boss, the concept is excellent, and the technology is very novel. If it really can create an infinite world as he claims, the appeal to players would be tremendous."
"Is that so…"
Myron Case narrowed his eyes, deep in thought.
The young man stood at the presentation spot, excitement and nervousness mingling as he waited for questions.
But Myron Case turned again to his subordinate. "You said this technology is novel. Does that mean it's a new technical route that hasn't been researched before?"
"Yes—more or less. The concept itself isn't difficult to understand. What matters is that he discovered it, while others didn't."
"If I asked you to implement this technology, could you do it in a short time?"
"Boss… do you mean copying his technology?"
"We won't use words like 'copy.' I'm just asking whether it can be done."
"Well… yes, it can. But I believe this young man has probably already filed patents. If we want to use this technology, we likely can't bypass him."
As he spoke, the development head glanced at the young man, clearly hesitant.
He wasn't entirely sure whether the young man had been clever enough to register the relevant patents in advance.
If he hadn't…
Then this young man would be in serious trouble.
Myron Case would never pass up an opportunity to seize someone else's achievements.
"I see. In that case, we'll elevate this project instead. Bring him under us. You'll manage him—assign him a team, give him resources, and let him build this game as fully as possible."
Since cutting corners wasn't an option, Myron Case stopped pushing the issue and instead ordered his people to absorb the young man into the company.
He saw potential in the technology the young man had developed.
By investing some money, inflating the project's value, and earning even more in return, he could then funnel those profits into tangible electronic technology development—using video games as a supplement to his larger business empire.
From the very beginning, Myron Case had never truly changed his view of video games.
Or rather, he found it hard to change it.
What he had changed was his assessment of their influence.
In his eyes, video games were a powerful money-printing machine—
And nothing more.