There were many possible reasons for the generally low quality of indie games. Takayuki personally believed the biggest reason was that game developers had entered a creative bottleneck period.
Every industry has its boom periods and its downturns—this is completely normal.
However, if a downturn isn't restrained in time, it can easily spiral into a vicious cycle.
It's like a restaurant: its food used to be good, but over time—perhaps people's tastes changed, or perhaps quality slipped just a little—revenue inevitably declined.
Once revenue drops, food quality may decline further. Fewer customers come, revenue drops again, quality worsens again.
Back and forth like this, and the restaurant eventually shuts down.
To stop this kind of decline, simply improving quality isn't enough—you need some unconventional solutions.
Right now, the indie game scene didn't seem to have many people capable of coming up with such unconventional ideas.
People naturally want to move upward. Not everyone is willing to stay in indie development forever.
Talented developers are gradually recruited by large companies. Those without much talent tend to produce weaker indie games.
The people who can truly stick to their original intentions—who only want to make good games without demanding big returns—are ultimately very few.
And the biggest strength of indie games should be diversity—not following the standardized assembly-line formulas of major studios.
A few days later, Bellrade reported the causes he had uncovered to Takayuki.
They were largely in line with Takayuki's earlier guesses.
Good developers had been heavily recruited away by companies like Sury Electronics and Micfox.
That was why Micfox and Sury Electronics had been making frequent big moves lately—their talent pools were indeed growing larger.
The downside, of course, was that the indie game scene had begun to shrink.
"President, the indie game circle is experiencing a serious gap in talent right now. Only a handful of well-known indie developers are still insisting on making games and publishing on our platform. The rest have either already joined big companies or are trying to. Indie games may slowly disappear in the future."
Takayuki shook his head. "They won't disappear. There will always be new people stepping in—just like with independent films. But it's true that the scene is shrinking right now."
"So should we just wait for new people to emerge?" Bellrade asked.
"Of course not. We need to act proactively. Indie games are an important part of the video game industry. This segment cannot disappear or decline casually—otherwise, diversity in talent can't be guaranteed."
Developers who all come from standardized academic backgrounds and enter big companies tend to gradually lose creativity.
For the sake of corporate profits, they focus entirely on sales and monetization. As for diversity in games? Sorry—that's no longer a consideration.
"Are game development competitions still being held recently?" Takayuki asked.
"They are."
"How big are they?"
"Each competition has around three to four hundred participants."
Takayuki smacked his lips. "That's a bit small."
Bellrade suggested, "What about increasing the prize money? Would that encourage more people to participate in game development?"
"Increasing prize money won't help much," Takayuki replied. "I want to increase the diversity of indie game types. Raising prizes alone won't do much—but go ahead and increase them for now. I'll think of other methods. By the way, when is the next game development competition?"
"In half a month. It'll be held in London."
"Good. I'll be there in person. I want to personally see how everyone's games turn out."
"You'll serve as a judge yourself? That should attract a lot of people."
Takayuki said, "That counts as a form of indirect attraction. I still need to think of other approaches."
"Understood. I'll make the arrangements."
Bellrade worked efficiently. That same afternoon Japan time, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment released an official announcement on its platform:
Game producer, President of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, Standing Honorary Chairman of the World Game Developers Federation, and Lifetime Achievement Honoree in World Game History,
Mr. Takayuki will personally attend the indie game development competition and serve as a judge to evaluate the games.
This immediately sparked heated discussion in the gaming community.
A figure like Takayuki attending in person was huge news. Many indie developers with strong ambitions—some of whom had previously felt such competitions were a waste of time—immediately booked flights to London upon hearing the announcement.
In Japan, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment also issued a separate domestic notice.
Any developer with a history of indie game development could have a special flight arranged by Gamestar to London, with round-trip travel expenses fully covered.
Even those without indie development experience—but with strong ideas and creativity—could also participate. Gamestar didn't mind spending that money.
As for Takayuki himself, he was at home, playing games while thinking about the indie game competition.
Relying solely on a competition to discover more indie developers was still quite difficult.
The scale was small, participation limited.
The number of people who could actually develop games was also limited—but Takayuki believed people had a strong desire to express themselves.
The question was: how to let that desire be expressed?
Ah—one solution was to further lower the barrier to game development, allowing people with strong ideas but weaker technical skills to participate as well.
It wasn't ideal, but it was a workaround.
Another idea was to let developers from big companies participate too.
By issuing special certification credentials and adding value to their résumés, even developers who only wanted to improve future job prospects might be willing to join indie competitions just to polish their profiles.
Still, this only treated the symptoms, not the root problem. Indie games needed diversity.
Click.
While thinking, Takayuki accidentally pressed the wrong button on the controller. The in-game character died instantly, and GAME OVER appeared on the screen.
With patience, Takayuki started a new round.
From not far away, the faint sound of a baby being soothed could be heard.
His mother was in the baby's room, taking care of his daughter. Yuko adored her granddaughter to no end—she even felt that a professional nanny couldn't compare to herself. Every time, she made the nanny stand aside and watch, collecting over a million yen a month in salary.
The nanny, meanwhile, was nervous—afraid she might lose her job—so she did everything she could to appear more professional and assist Yuko in caring for the baby.
"Takayuki, you're carrying a heavy burden on your mind."
Aya came over, gently leaning against his side.