"What has the president been up to lately? He hasn't been in the company at all—where did he go?"
Inside the headquarters of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, several game development department heads were gathered together, chatting casually.
Recently, work at Gamestar Electronic Entertainment hadn't been particularly busy.
Every game development plan was progressing steadily. After finishing work on Final Fantasy XIII, Takayuki had begun arranging development for the online game Final Fantasy XIV.
That project was still in its early stages, so there was no rush.
Most of the other projects were also in their initial phases, which kept everyone's mindset fairly relaxed.
That gave them time to gather together and talk about recent industry news—and about where their president had disappeared to.
"No idea. It really has been over a month since we last saw him. Director Aya isn't around either—do you think they secretly went on a honeymoon?"
"That's pretty likely. To be honest, the two of them have never really had proper time alone. The president is always busy making games, and Director Aya is always obsessed with researching game technology. Their personalities are actually quite similar."
"So what do we do now?"
"Just keep developing games as usual. But speaking of which, there is a piece of news that's worth paying attention to."
"What is it?"
"That indie developer called 'Nintendo Damn It Is the Ruler of the World' teamed up with former Morgan Group CEO Lorenzo to start a game company."
"Oh, I know about that. That Nintendo guy's games are pretty interesting. Didn't expect him to suddenly start a company—and I heard their first game is a battle royale?"
"Battle royale, huh. Has anyone here really looked into that genre before?"
Everyone shook their heads together.
That genre hadn't been mainstream before. While some companies had tried making similar games, most of them never achieved notable success.
The best case seemed to be a battle royale game that suddenly became popular in South Korea—but even that only stayed hot locally for a short time, with little enthusiasm from other countries.
Not far away, Eri Hayasawa was eating breakfast. By coincidence, she overheard the conversation between the department heads and felt completely clear-headed about it.
She was one of the very few people who knew about Takayuki's alternate account.
"That game's marketing is incredibly aggressive. It's even snatching away some of our advertising resources. Could this be another powerful competitor?"
"Possibly. That company has the former Morgan Group CEO backing it—money definitely won't be a problem."
"Then we should probably be cautious. That indie developer is very capable. There's no direct competition with us right now, but that doesn't mean there won't be in the future."
"If the president were here, maybe he could give us some direction—or even lead us to develop a similar game to counter them."
At this moment, the group had clearly begun treating Takayuki's alternate-account company as a hypothetical enemy, even considering whether they should preemptively counter it.
However, with Takayuki absent, there wasn't much they could actually do.
One of the department heads contacted Minori Matsuhashi, the company's second-in-command, to see if she could get in touch with Takayuki.
Potential competitors still needed to be taken seriously.
But Matsuhashi responded that there was no need to worry. That company wouldn't pose a threat—as long as they continued developing games according to Takayuki's existing plans, everything would be fine.
After hearing that, the department heads dropped the subject.
Or rather, they hadn't been especially concerned to begin with.
Even if that company really did rise up, they were confident it could never rival Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
That confidence came from nearly thirty years of accumulated reputation and achievements—and the fact that Gamestar had almost never released a truly bad game.
So many major corporations had tried to challenge Gamestar's position and failed.
With that, they returned to developing games in peace, no longer paying attention to the matter.
Meanwhile, inside Suri Electronics, Uehito Hayakawa frowned as he looked at the latest internet news coming out of the United States.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment could afford to ignore challengers.
Suri Electronics couldn't.
If it were just small-scale competition, that would be fine—but this time, the background was huge.
Lorenzo was backing them.
If this company grew successfully, it might become another Mikuford.
Back then, Mikuford had nearly knocked Suri Electronics out of the number-two position. If Myron Kays hadn't mentally collapsed and given up on games, Hayakawa might still be locked in an expensive, long-term battle for second place.
He immediately summoned the person in charge of Suri's game division and ordered him to strictly monitor and suppress the rise of this new company called Nintendo.
Since the other side was preparing to develop a battle royale game, Suri Electronics couldn't afford to lag behind.
Coincidentally, this also seemed to be a blind spot in Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's portfolio—maybe there was even a chance to make some profit here.
The core of battle royale gameplay was relatively fixed: a group of people fight until only one individual or team survives.
But how to achieve that, and how to force players into conflict—that was the real challenge. So far, no one had come up with truly outstanding ideas.
Still, Suri Electronics had plenty of talent.
Before long, someone proposed forcing player conflict through survival resource constraints.
For example, adding various strongholds across the map, controlled by AI. Players would need to obtain food, water, weapons, and other supplies from these locations—and then struggle to survive until the end.
Others suggested adding the popular zombie element.
Gamestar's Resident Evil had done extremely well and helped popularize zombies again. Adding zombies could increase tension and atmosphere.
Once game development entered a systematic process, creativity itself could also be "systematized."
In just a few days, Suri Electronics had established the basic direction for their battle royale game. All that remained was to accelerate development.
As for Mikuford—
They had already completely given up.
Myron Kays had lost all interest in the gaming industry. His focus was now entirely on his company's electronic products.
Fashionable. Light luxury. High-end aesthetic.
That was what he wanted to pursue—making money from brand premiums.
Video games?
Sorry. Not familiar.
I'm already selling it off, and you're telling me there are competitors?
Still, he couldn't help but envy the money behind that new company.
Lorenzo had publicly declared an initial investment of one billion dollars.
As expected of a former richest man.
But wasn't he overestimating that indie game developer a bit?
Just what methods did that guy use to convince a big shot like Lorenzo to invest?
Relying on that battle royale game that clearly didn't look very promising?
He really couldn't understand it.
If that money were invested in him, Mikuford could have developed much faster.
Or better yet—
Why not just use that one billion dollars to buy up the game division he was planning to split off anyway?