Chapter 151: Tournament Finals
Chapter 151: Tournament Finals
He had already discovered some decent players and was running a team. However, his goal had simply been winning the championship, promoting national prestige, and publicizing games within the Nuchin Kingdom. He had not paid much attention to profits.
But if his players achieved good results and attracted a large number of advertisements, that alone seemed like it could become fairly profitable.
No, it did not even matter if they did not earn that much. As long as it helped cover operating expenses, that was enough. In the first place, the reason he ran a gaming team was not for money, so there was not much pressure on him. It would be nice if it worked out, and if it did not, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. There was no reason not to give it a try.
Once his thoughts reached that point, he cleared away the drinking table, pulled out a notebook, and started writing a proposal.
After the two-day preliminary tournament held during the holiday ended, there were five days remaining until the finals. That interval had been decided after considerable thought.
It would certainly have been more convenient to continue directly into the finals the next day, but there was a possibility the players and audience would feel exhausted. More importantly, many of them had jobs, so the biggest reason was that the event needed to be held during holidays.
Of course, there was also the option of holding it several weeks or even a month later. That would create the effect of the event lasting longer and generate greater promotional impact at lower cost.
However, that also had problems. On Earth, it probably would not matter much, but transportation in this world was still underdeveloped. As a result, traveling back and forth between the tournament venue and home was extremely tiring for participants.
For overseas participants especially, it could take ten days just to arrive. In that case, even with a month-long interval, returning home would still be awkward. At the same time, staying overseas for an entire month was also difficult.
Five days was a short amount of time. However, during that period, the players were unbelievably busy.
It was not merely because they were practicing for the finals. Of course, everyone prepared as hard as they could, but the bigger issue was dealing with the approaches from companies they had never expected.
Still, very few people found it unpleasant.
No, most of them were moved simply because the world had finally acknowledged them through gaming, which had only ever been their hobby. Of course, many of them were still dazed by the situation as well.
“So all I have to do is wear these clothes, right?”
“Yes. We would appreciate it if you could make sure the logo is as visible as possible.”
Torzan was considered one of the strongest championship contenders, and naturally, companies had approached this Dwarf.
One of them was QM, a monitor manufacturing company.
They employed a fairly advanced method. They made shirts with pictures of monitors and the company logo printed on them, then had the players wear them.
As a computer-related company, they had already been paying attention to this gaming tournament and were one of the few businesses that had purchased advertising cards for the event.
The advertising cards installed all throughout the tournament venue were now filled not only with Meta Soft-related companies, but with many other businesses as well.
Most contracts between companies and players were signed on an individual basis. They were also almost entirely one-time agreements.
If you do this during this match, we will pay you this much money.
That was the basic structure.
It was far too small-scale to call them professional gamers yet, but everything had to start somewhere. Once better results appeared and the players started building actual careers, proper contracts would naturally follow.
And then, five days passed.
“From this moment onward, the 1st Bomb Special Forces World Tournament begins!!”
As Delmongu stretched both arms upward while performing his trademark exaggerated movements that shook his entire body, the audience responded with deafening cheers.
They had already gone through the preliminary tournament once, but the excitement seemed not to have faded at all. The players themselves also wore solemn expressions.
This tournament was different from previous ones in many ways.
The biggest difference was the sharing of information.
Previously, players knew almost nothing about their opponents until immediately before the match.
But now, through Spirit Space, information about which players had advanced through the preliminary tournament was being shared, along with details about those players, especially the strategies they used.
As a result, players who used Spirit Space had already gathered information about strong competitors beforehand and even practiced counterstrategies.
Because of that, instead of simply enjoying the festival atmosphere like before, there was now a grim determination among the competitors who genuinely hungered for victory.
Yet despite that tension, quite a few players entering the arena ended up ruining the mood with ridiculous appearances.
After signing contracts with companies, they had to use the promotional methods requested by those businesses as compensation. Since it was everyone’s first time, many of the methods were utterly bizarre.
Simply putting logos on clothing was fine.
However, some players entered while holding flags or banners with company logos above their heads. Others wore giant capes, robes densely covered with logos, company products, and explanations, while some attached company merchandise directly onto their hats.
There were even players forced to wear mascot costumes.
“This is seriously uncomfortable...”
Johnbill, one of the championship contenders, sighed as he stepped onto the stage wearing a frog mascot costume dressed like a prince.
When the toy company Dream Toy had first handed him the contract, he had signed it happily without hesitation. Now, he regretted not examining the terms more carefully.
Not only was it embarrassing, it was incredibly uncomfortable.
Still, since the company also benefited if he won matches and gained popularity, they negotiated a compromise that allowed him to remove the head and arm sections during the actual game. Even so, it was still uncomfortable no matter what.
Unlike the players who signed contracts individually, Baron Taito’s team possessed far greater negotiating power, allowing them to reject or compromise on the companies’ stranger demands.
In truth, Baron Taito had wanted to sign with multiple companies to maximize profits, but he failed to achieve that.
From the companies’ perspective, using players as advertising models was already experimental enough. They believed that sharing attention with other companies would only dilute the effect.
The company Baron Taito signed with was East Digital, a manufacturer of diskettes and diskette drives.
Originally, they had held a monopolistic position in the market, but as the computer industry rapidly expanded, competitors offering lower prices began appearing. As a result, East Digital had become increasingly aggressive with advertising and publicity.
“This is nice.”
“Yeah. It’ll probably feel even better once winter comes.”
Xiao and Uzkaran were wearing blue jackets with the East Digital logo printed large across the back.
The impoverished boys were deeply moved not by the logo itself, but by the fact that they finally had proper outerwear.
Of course, they already had clothes for cold weather, but the economic and technological gap between the Republic of Smite and the Nuchin Kingdom was enormous. The clothes they owned before were all crude and poorly made, so naturally they were delighted to finally possess properly manufactured clothing, even if it was not truly luxurious.
“Alright, alright. Let’s work hard, kids. The Baron said he’ll give you half a ducat for every victory this time.”
The ducat was a gold coin used in the Nuchin Kingdom, making it a substantial amount of money.
Even half a ducat was roughly equivalent to 500,000 won.
“Wow! Really?!”
The two boys, who had become players largely because of money, naturally reacted sensitively to that.
“Of course. And he also said there’ll be a special bonus if you place high in the rankings.”
“Ooh!”
As expected, professionals talked with money.
The two boys immediately burst with motivation.
When they first came to the Republic of Smite, they had never even considered winning the championship. However, after experiencing the preliminary tournament and realizing their skills truly worked here, they became just as ambitious about victory as Baron Taito himself.
Of course, unlike Baron Taito, their attention was focused entirely on the prize money attached to winning.
“The two players from East Digital are entering the arena!!”
Meta Soft did not stop companies from contacting players and using them as advertising models.
In the first place, the tournament had no dress code, and Ras wanted to commercialize and revitalize the gaming tournament by any means possible, so he actively encouraged it instead.
In fact, he even instructed the announcers to reveal which players had signed with which companies beforehand, to the point that the company names were announced during player introductions like now.
Hearing it reminded Ras of the professional gaming leagues he had once watched on television, making him feel strangely nostalgic.
Of course, everyone besides him found it awkward, but nobody openly opposed it.
Perhaps there were people disappointed or angered that commercialism had entered what they believed was a pure festival.
However, Ras decided not to think too deeply about such people.
It was impossible to satisfy everyone with anything, and more importantly, he firmly believed this was the correct path if they wanted to revitalize the gaming tournament.
And there was also a positive side effect.
Unlike celebrities, players did not possess much appeal beyond gaming skill alone. However, the unusual promotional strategies of various companies ended up giving them unique character identities.
As a result, even Johnbill’s mascot costume received fairly positive reactions from the audience.
At the very least, it was entertaining to watch.
“Good! Uz, just hold on a little longer!”
Xiao’s team faced Johnbill’s team using the hammer-and-anvil strategy.
Thanks to gaining real combat experience, Xiao’s skill had improved even further, allowing him to handle both opponents without difficulty while stalling for time.
Meanwhile, Uzkaran relentlessly pressured Johnbill, and eventually Johnbill’s weasel ended up roasted whole.
After that, the outcome was obvious.
They could not even win in a 2-versus-2 situation, so there was no way they could win in a 2-versus-1. Johnbill’s team was eliminated early just like that.
For players once considered championship contenders, it was a hollow ending.
Perhaps they had failed to perform properly because of the mascot costumes.
Still, they had chosen those contracts themselves, so naturally they would also have to bear the consequences.
Xiao’s team continued advancing victoriously.
In terms of fundamentals alone, they were arguably the best participants in the tournament, making it extremely difficult to defeat them in direct combat.
Furthermore, the surprise strategy that defeated them during the preliminaries had acted like a preventative vaccine, making them even more cautious.
Despite their young age, they now possessed an unexpected sturdiness that could only truly be felt by the players facing Xiao directly.
“They’ve won again!! The dark horse from the Nuchin Kingdom is incredibly powerful!!”
After winning twice and advancing to the semifinals, it started to feel as though the two boys had begun gaining fans of their own.
The cheers that erupted whenever they won had noticeably grown louder.
However, the two of them could not relax.
Their semifinal opponents were none other than Vints and Squinack, the very pair who had defeated them during the preliminary tournament.
“Huh? We meet again?”
The Elf man named Vints waved cheerfully as if greeting old friends, but since Xiao and Uzkaran could not understand what he was saying and were too tense besides, they did not respond.
“What do you think?”
After entering the booth, Squinack turned toward Vints and asked.
“Who knows? They looked completely frozen to me.”
Earlier, he had greeted them as though it were unexpected, but in truth, Vints had already checked the tournament brackets beforehand.
There was no way he would fail to pay attention to the dark horses he had already fought once before.
The greeting from earlier had merely been a probing move and a psychological tactic.
Because he possessed a strategist’s temperament, he tried to gain even the slightest advantage before the game even started.
Vints believed he had laid down a fairly decent opening move and quickly began considering an appropriate strategy.
However, they were not the only ones preparing strategies tailored to their opponents.
Especially after already losing to them once, preparing countermeasures was only natural.
“We’ll go with an all-out assault. If we drag things out, they’ll come up with some strange strategy again, so don’t give them any opportunity to pull something out.”
And this time, the coach played that role.
The victory rewards and championship bonuses also applied to him, and the matter was equally important to him as well. As a result, he had done his own research, and this was the conclusion he reached.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Bomb Special Forces (폭탄특공대) — Fictional bomb-action competitive game in the novel inspired by real-world games such as Bomberman and Crazy Arcade, centered around strategic bomb placement and multiplayer combat.
Puyo Puyo (뿌요뿌요) — Real-world Japanese puzzle game series first released by Compile in 1991, famous for its chain-combo mechanics that heavily influenced competitive puzzle games.