Mikufu's decision to split off its game development division came extremely suddenly.
No one in the industry had expected it.
Up until now, Mikufu's game division had been doing reasonably well—at the very least, it was breaking even, and occasionally even turning a small profit.
So why would they suddenly want to dismantle it?
It was obvious that Mayron Kess had been shaken. The online criticism had clearly affected him, and on top of that, the game business hadn't turned out to be nearly as profitable as he had originally imagined.
That made him start to retreat.
Takayuki thought about it for a long time, but still couldn't fully pin down the exact reason.
However, for other companies, this was actually good news.
Mikufu's game business had already reached a certain scale—ranking just behind Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, Brown Entertainment, and Suri Electronics.
It had real foundations.
Announcing a split meant that Mikufu's game division would no longer receive large-scale funding from the parent company.
From now on, the game division would have to worry about profits and losses on its own, as well as various forms of technical R&D and licensing costs.
Previously, many of those technical expenses had been covered directly by Mikufu headquarters.
Now, the game division would have to shoulder part of those costs themselves.
Under such circumstances, whether Mikufu's game division could even maintain a break-even balance became a serious question.
For starters, with their current headcount, they clearly couldn't sustain the simultaneous development of three large-scale games.
They simply didn't have that much cash flow.
For over a month, people across the industry discussed this major shake-up in the gaming world.
At the same time, some companies began to stir, extending olive branches toward Mikufu's game talent.
Since Mikufu itself wanted to split off the game division, other companies stopped being subtle.
Some studios directly called Mikufu's game department and openly declared their intention to take in all of Mikufu's game developers at once.
Of course—employees only.
They didn't want the game IPs, assets, or data.
Each company had its own strengths; they wanted people, not baggage.
As for copyrights—those companies already had plenty of their own. There was no need to get entangled with unclear or problematic IPs from another firm.
On top of that, Mikufu's reputation among players had taken a serious hit, and the value of its game copyrights had plummeted accordingly.
At this point, everyone in Mikufu's game division was deeply demoralized.
From the moment they joined Mikufu, their development path had never been particularly smooth.
Just when they had finally achieved some results, a series of events destroyed their reputation once again.
Then Mayron Kess himself seemed to lose heart.
He no longer wanted to directly engage in game development, instead opening up the platform and encouraging other companies to publish their games on Mikufu's platform.
But clearly, not many companies were interested.
Mikufu's hardware performance was undeniably strong, but even Mikufu's own game division hadn't made any waves.
Other studios had even less reason to believe they could make money there.
Only developers of low-cost games—those who saw "one more platform" as "one more bit of revenue"—were willing to consider it.
Most of those were indie titles or small-budget projects.
Takayuki observed all of this closely.
From the moment Mikufu announced the split, he had been following the situation carefully.
After more than a month, Mikufu's game division had nearly fallen apart.
Many people were already thinking about leaving, but because they were still officially under Mikufu headquarters, they had to wait about another month for the split to complete—only then would the game division become an independent company, and only then would these developers regain true freedom.
For now, they were clearly in a "body here, heart elsewhere" state.
The three large-scale games currently in development had completely stalled.
Those projects would likely end without results.
Once the split was finalized, many game companies would swoop in like vultures, carving up Mikufu's game division piece by piece.
"Boss, you wanted to see me?"
The producer of Infinite World entered Takayuki's office with a hint of nervousness.
Normally, this producer kept a low profile. Since moving to Japan, most of his time had been devoted entirely to the continued development of Infinite World.
Up to now, all game updates had been free.
The additional revenue still couldn't cover ongoing development costs.
Yet Takayuki had consistently and patiently provided them with technical and resource support.
For that, the Infinite World producer was deeply grateful.
Grateful that someone in this world was willing to give a game a second chance—a chance to be recognized again.
Recently, Infinite World's sales had begun rising rapidly.
This was different from the spikes caused by major updates in the past.
The game wasn't even on sale, yet tens of thousands of copies were being purchased every day.
Those small amounts were steadily adding up, and total sales had finally reached the ten-million mark, entering the ranks of globally successful games.
All of this was thanks to the man in front of him—Takayuki, the god of games.
"Have a seat. I just want to confirm a few things with you," Takayuki said.
"Ask anything you like."
"I assume you're fairly familiar with Mikufu's game division," Takayuki continued. "I want to know how capable their staff actually are at developing games."
Why was the boss suddenly asking about this?
The Infinite World producer felt a bit puzzled.
But Takayuki hadn't brought this up on a whim.
Over the past month, he had spent much of his time playing and studying Mikufu's earlier classic titles.
As games in this world became more and more numerous, Takayuki had found it hard to keep up—and he'd subconsciously ignored Mikufu's catalog.
It wasn't until Mikufu announced the split that he remembered this once-prominent fourth-largest game developer.
If they were ranked fourth in the world, they clearly had real capability.
It was just that Takayuki had been intentionally or unintentionally suppressing Mikufu all along, causing their games to remain lukewarm.
Much like Titanfall in his previous life—a high-quality game released right next to both its own publisher's and its competitors' top-tier shooters.
Players didn't need to think hard; they naturally chose the more famous titles.
Titanfall became cannon fodder.
Many of Mikufu's games were in the same position.
Now, Takayuki finally went back and actually played Mikufu's games—and discovered that they were genuinely solid.
Level design, storytelling, gameplay mechanics—all comfortably above the passing line, with occasional bright spots.
It could only be said that Mikufu's game division had been unlucky.
Too unlucky.
Crushed between Takayuki and other major studios, leaving this development team perpetually stuck in mediocrity.