In one of the endings of Final Fantasy XIII Versus, if you complete a large number of prerequisite quests in the early stages, the main storyline will open up a new branching route.
Later on, that branch becomes a new ending—and this new ending is officially declared a happy ending.
The prince and the princess live happily together, and jointly govern a newly rebuilt nation.
When Murakami Kazuo reached that ending, he was pleasantly surprised.
Because in the past, the Final Fantasy series had never had an official, proper happy ending.
Getting Gamestar Electronic Entertainment to give a joyful, complete ending had always been harder than climbing to the sky.
But this time, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment seemed to have suddenly changed its nature, allowing Final Fantasy to finally have a perfect conclusion.
Murakami Kazuo was even a little moved. He quickly published the method to achieve this perfect ending on his own review website.
Once it was posted, many players who had already cleared the game discovered there was another ending—an actually perfect one—and they couldn't sit still anymore. One after another, they reopened Final Fantasy XIII Versus, refusing to stop until they achieved that perfect ending at least once.
Clearly, quite a lot of players in this world still prefer a perfect ending.
They feel that way the story is properly complete, instead of being a tragic open ending that leaves people restless and frustrated.
Others felt that real life was already hard enough—there was no need to experience upsetting plotlines in a game as well.
So when Final Fantasy XIII Versus first launched, those players didn't even consider it. They thought, Final Fantasy always ends in tragedy—playing it would just be depressing.
Better to wait. No need to play it right away. Wait until there's a discount, and when you're in a better mood, then try it.
But now that word of a perfect happy ending was spreading online, those players also couldn't sit still, and started preparing to pay for it.
An officially confirmed perfect ending—something extremely rare in Final Fantasy. Not playing it would feel like a loss.
As a result, Final Fantasy XIII Versus maintained its hype for nearly another month, making other game companies feel utterly stifled.
Sure, your game is fun—fine. But isn't it enough for players to be enthusiastic for one week, or two?
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment clearly wasn't satisfied. They kept pulling out new tricks to keep the heat going. In the end, Final Fantasy XIII Versus soared past ten million sales and still didn't stop, making other game companies nauseated just watching.
Who plays like that? If you play like that, how are we supposed to survive?
Fortunately, a game's popularity will eventually fade. Gamestar Electronic Entertainment wasn't a god—there would always be an end. Other companies wouldn't truly be forced out of business.
After the hype lasted a month and a half, Final Fantasy XIII Versus stabilized at seventeen million copies sold, and over the long stretch that followed, it would keep selling steadily.
Two years later, when a big discount arrived, sales could climb again. Earning an absolute fortune was no longer a question—the remaining goal was simply to keep expanding influence.
No sooner had Final Fantasy wrapped up than Takayuki immediately moved on to tracking and supervising the development of GTA 5.
This game had been developed almost concurrently with Final Fantasy XIII Versus, but its development difficulty was clearly higher. It was an open-world game, and in the later stages they added sandbox-building features, expanding the game's scale even further. Judging by the planned release date, it would probably have to wait until the following year.
But that was fine. There were still plenty of other games on hand. The release rhythm wouldn't break—each game was its own cashflow stream, enough to make them rich beyond measure.
While Takayuki was overseeing GTA 5, the "Infinite World" development team he had previously absorbed suddenly brought him news.
Their Infinite World could release a major new update. This update would, to a certain degree, enrich the gameplay and make the game at least worth the price.
Takayuki was somewhat surprised. He had thought it would take them at least one or two years to roughly make up for the earlier shortcomings.
But now, it seemed they had repaired some of those regrets ahead of schedule.
"Boss, this is the Infinite World 1.1 update we've just completed. This time we added richer building features, and also online multiplayer. I think these two features can at least fix the game's original problem of having too little content."
"Let me see." Takayuki spoke with the team lead via video call. The brand-new test build had already been sent to him. He launched the game, and after the screen flashed, his character appeared on the edge of a wilderness with unlimited materials—here, you could freely use your imagination to build an entire city.
Giving Infinite World a sandbox building mode was a stroke of genius.
In his previous life, No Man's Sky had also greatly increased its overall playability by modifying its core gameplay and adding sandbox construction.
From the start, Takayuki had advised this team to prioritize online multiplayer and building mode first. The rest could come slowly—no need to rush. After all, you can't become fat in one bite. The game's reputation had already bottomed out, so they might as well go all-in and do their absolute best. It wasn't like it could get worse than before, right?
Perhaps it was precisely because of that do-or-die attitude that the team's momentum became even stronger.
The developers this producer brought over were all brimming with drive. Combined with Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's internal Unreal Engine, the game had practically transformed into something entirely new.
"Very good." Takayuki nodded.
That was the highest-tier evaluation he could give.
Very few games earned a "very good" from him.
His own games aside, there truly weren't many in this world that he'd call "very good."
To him, "very good" was something like the God of War series, the Dark Souls series—top-tier works.
And the gameplay systems this team had fought to build were already quite ingenious.
"Did you also get help from others?" Takayuki asked.
The producer said a little awkwardly, "Yes. I specifically asked people from the Benedict AI Lab to help us improve the AI mechanisms for creating planets and civilizations. And I also borrowed 'our' Stanford squad for a while to help solve a lot of technical problems. Boss, our team is really amazing."
Takayuki automatically ignored the flattery and nodded. "This version really is good. You can release it. But I won't allocate much promotional resources on my side—at most, I'll have the Battle.net platform promote it a bit. Other promotion channels still have their own tasks. As for other ways to improve the game's reputation, that'll depend on you."
Takayuki had already provided this team with a great deal of help.
Manpower, resources, funding—if even with all that they still couldn't salvage their reputation, then it could only mean they weren't truly suited for the game development industry.
And then Takayuki wouldn't be polite about it. He'd just have them do the bottom-level work, while specialized game-development tasks would be handed to others.
As for marketing, they had to work for it themselves. This was as far as Takayuki would go.
Still, Takayuki believed the game could recover.
Based on its current state alone, it was already "playable"—it wouldn't bore players after a short time.
So players should naturally spread the word on their own.
"Okay. I'll work hard, boss. We won't trouble the company with promotion—we can handle it ourselves."
This producer was also reasonable.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment truly had already helped them a lot.
Without Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, their team might have dissolved long ago. He might have ended up obediently working as a programmer at some obscure small company, then retiring quietly without a ripple.
But Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's appearance was like giving them a chance to rise again.
If even then they still couldn't do it well, they would withdraw from the game development circle on their own.
At the very least, they wouldn't enter the mainstream development scene again—they'd accept being an invisible nobody at the bottom.
"Do you have a planned release date for the new version? When the time comes, contact Bellraid at the Battle.net platform. He'll give you a featured recommendation slot on the day."
"Then… how about one week from now? It'll be just before Christmas. I want to give the players—and ourselves—a gift."
"Alright."
Takayuki agreed.
This Christmas, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment itself wouldn't be launching a major flagship title, so giving this team a chance to get promoted was fine.
The team immediately began sharpening their knives—they were already looking forward to fighting hard during the key Christmas release window.
But they also understood clearly: their game's reputation had been bad from the start, so they were at a natural disadvantage.
So… as long as they could increase sales by another three to five hundred thousand… no, that was too ambitious. Another one or two hundred thousand would already be enough.
"The boss has agreed! One week from now, on the eve of Christmas, we release Infinite World 1.1!"
After hanging up with Takayuki, the young producer rushed out of the office and excitedly announced the good news to his people.
Everyone immediately cheered.
They had been waiting a very long time for this message.
Before the call, they had still been worried their new boss would nitpick.
Because they had heard Takayuki was extremely strict—any game he supervised had to reach very high quality standards to pass his approval, especially the games he personally produced.
And while there was no precedent for a halfway-adopted project like theirs, they still instinctively imagined Takayuki would treat them just as strictly.
Maybe the new boss would think the game still didn't have enough content.
But Takayuki agreed quickly, and they were all thrilled.
In fact, Takayuki was also surprised by their development efficiency. And while he was strict about quality control, that depended on what kind of game it was.
When a game's reputation has already collapsed, you can't apply normal development logic.
A reputation-collapse project doesn't need one or two huge, high-cost repair jobs. It needs steady, long-term effort.
Massive, expensive fixes extend development time—and players who still had a sliver of hope might eventually lose patience and abandon the game entirely.
For a game with ruined reputation, you must constantly interact with players and tell them: Look, we're still working. We haven't run away. We're improving the game with the newest tech. Don't leave too quickly—there's an even richer four-dishes-and-soup meal waiting for you.
And then before the grand reveal, you serve a bowl of soup first—to steady morale. That was roughly the idea, which is why Takayuki approved an update that "only" added sandbox building and multiplayer.
Takayuki was also a bit curious. He wanted to see whether most players would still be interested in a "reputation recovery" game like this, or whether they were completely heartbroken and unwilling to touch a scam game ever again.
One week later, Christmas was approaching, and most countries had already entered a festive mood and atmosphere.
Especially Western countries—most of them celebrated Christmas.
Among them, there was a veteran player at home, head down, playing the latest games.
He was a game enthusiast, and also a somewhat well-known game reviewer online.
The rise of self-media had given ordinary people more channels to speak.
Even an ordinary person could become "media," and publish their views on certain things.
A game reviewer like him had emerged precisely in this environment.
Maybe their professionalism couldn't compare to Murakami Kazuo, but they faithfully served niche groups of players.
They served players by stepping on landmines first—telling them what games were fun, and what games were trash.
On his Battle.net platform library alone, there were already over a thousand different open-world games.
Among them, Infinite World was an extremely inconspicuous one.
At this moment, he was a bit bored, casually browsing recent news updates on the Battle.net platform.
And while he was scrolling, Battle.net suddenly popped up a new recommended message on the homepage.
"Infinite World Version 1.1 officially released—adds brand-new gameplay features. Players are welcome to come experience it."