Chapter 169: The First Managing Game

“...This is fun.”

Garazt had continued to doubt it even though he had made it himself. The question was whether a game like this could really be fun.

Of course, he knew management and strategy could also provide fun, but he had thought Sea King and Civilization and War attracted interest because they fundamentally used subjects like armies and war, things that made men’s hearts race.

That was why, as someone with little interest in baseball, he had been skeptical about this game.

But once the game was nearly complete and entered testing, it was different from what he had imagined.

When a match began, it merely proceeded automatically according to what had been prepared in advance, with no direct controls, yet he could not take his eyes off it.

Is this the psychology of people who go watch baseball games?

He suddenly had that thought while watching and hoping his pitcher would take down the opposing batter.

What Garazt was playing right now was Single Mode. The game’s main content was online, but since he had enjoyed Football Manager quite a bit in the past, he found it hard to abandon single-player mode.

Gacha had its own thrill, but there was also fun in gradually drawing players from a fixed overall talent pool and building a star team. There was also enjoyment in not simply gathering only top-tier players and steamrolling everything, but instead raising mid-tier or weak players, building strategies well, and winning.

“Ah. Just hold out a little longer.”

Garazt lamented as his starting pitcher, Begnum, ran out of stamina and came down.

Since he knew little about baseball, he had gone all in on acquiring the strongest player possible and succeeded in recruiting an A-rank player named Begnum. But because he spent too much money on him, all the relief pitchers were poor.

He had put Begnum through stamina training so he could stay on the mound longer, but his stamina talent was not very high, so there was a limit.

Garazt hoped the relief pitchers would do well, but as expected, they began giving up hit after hit.

If it had been people who knew baseball well, they probably would have brought in strong defensive players to cover for it. But once Garazt’s pitcher was breached, the field was practically undefended.

His shortstop was especially poor, so even when the outfielder threw the ball in properly, he often fumbled around and missed it or threw it somewhere strange.

“Ugh...”

Of course, even if Garazt had not known much at first, watching the match unfold like this allowed him to get a feel for each player’s role. He decided that after work today, he would look into baseball a little.

Even Garazt, who had not held much interest in baseball, became immersed and enjoyed it, so people who liked baseball were completely absorbed.

“Oooh!! It’s Puts!”

A Beastman man named Arandel from the QA Team was a baseball fanatic.

But since everyone was only playing for testing, they could not buy card packs, and since it was Single Mode anyway, they had started from the bottom.

Arandel thought matches were somehow possible with his current players, but winning the championship would be difficult, so he tried recruiting players. He had no money for trades, so he frequently used prospect recruitment.

Most of the results were duds, but perhaps because his persistence paid off, a name he knew popped up.

Of course, since the player was still young, his current ability values were not impressive. But once he grew, he would become an outfielder who displayed powerful defense. He had especially excellent catching and throwing abilities, making him a player who showed tremendous defensive power.

For the early stages, when it was difficult to obtain a powerful pitcher immediately, he could be considered a very good card.

Other than that, Arandel also placed decent B-rank players in suitable positions and was able to show a fairly good win rate.

But not everyone reacted positively.

“Ah... I don’t really get it.”

For people like Pana, who had absolutely no interest in baseball, this test itself was torture.

Since she had personally drawn some of the game’s illustrations and graphics, they were familiar to look at, but she was only in charge of graphics, so her understanding of the game system was not deep.

Of course, it was not real baseball, and it had been designed to be as easy to understand as possible, so after wandering around for a while, she managed to figure out how to play.

After that, she thought it was tolerable enough.

But her honest feeling was that she would not seek this out and pay money for it.

That was unavoidable due to the nature of sports games.

In any case, the overall reaction was quite good, so Ras had them fix only the bugs without making any major changes and immediately handed the game over to Barbal Soft.

These days, the professional QA Team searched for problems extremely thoroughly, so he felt far less anxious than in the past.

“The building is very impressive.”

The pickup duty was still handled by Tshtet, the muscular Beastman. Even after coming up to Meta Soft’s development room, he kept looking around before saying this with his blunt face.

Then again, even this man, who seemed suited to the phrase “combat power,” was still someone who participated in society.

“Ahaha. Thank you.”

Ras chuckled.

Perhaps he was being sincere. Unlike before, Meta Building was a structure befitting the status of a major corporation.

Barbal Soft had also become one of the dinosaurs of this industry and possessed a fairly large company building now, but it was much smaller than Meta Building.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“Yes. We’ll be counting on you.”

Tshtet, who was sincere about his work, carefully packed up the game and quickly left. Ras scratched his head while watching him leave.

In truth, Ras had recently been feeling somewhat skeptical about the method of sending games to Barbal Soft.

Since Spirit Space existed, he wondered whether there was any need to send them physically.

Of course, Tshtet moved quickly, and since there had never been a single incident until now, he was trustworthy. But it still could not be as fast or as safe as transmitting it through the network.

During the early days of Spirit Space, transmission speed had been so slow that sending diskettes was better, but now, in most cases, simply transmitting it would be faster.

It was also convenient.

There would be no need to contact them, wait for someone to come, and hand over diskettes again. They could simply send it immediately.

But seeing Tshtet made it difficult to say such things.

He had not made any mistakes, and even for Ras, a businessman, it was not easy to suddenly make someone who took his work seriously unemployed.

In the end, Ras simply sighed once and turned away from the exit where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Tshtet disappeared.

It seemed they would continue using the current method for quite a while.

Still, if he thought about it, this method was not without advantages. First of all, since there had been no problems so far, it had reliability, and because someone from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other side came in person to collect it, there was less room for issues to arise.

If they sent it through network transmission, data might accidentally leak elsewhere, and management could become more careless than with physical diskettes.

Maybe my thinking is too far ahead.

Come to think of it, even on Earth, long after the internet became active, games were still placed on physical media and handed over to distributors for quite some time.

“This is another very unusual work.”

Roxy, the president of Barbal Soft, briefly played Meta Soft’s Professional Baseball Manager and gave that impression.

At first, when he heard it was a baseball game, he had imagined an ordinary sports game.

Of course, since it was Meta Soft, he thought there would be some degree of originality. But he had expected it to be like Explosive Baseball on Talados, using magic to throw literal magical pitches and enchanting baseball bats with spells.

“But a game where you become a team owner? I really never imagined that.”

“Exactly.”

Jennifer nodded in agreement.

Her position had risen considerably, and she had her own separate duties, but Meta Soft’s new releases were a major issue for Barbal Soft.

“Still, management is interesting.”

Since Roxy was a president running a company and Jennifer was also a high-level manager, they reacted positively to the subject matter. Of course, running a company in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reality was not simply fun.

“Oh! The illustrations are really good.”

Roxy admired the card illustrations of the players that appeared after launching the game. As someone who liked baseball, he remembered the faces of famous players.

“Yes. I heard Meta Soft purchased usage rights directly from the Baseball Federation.”

“Right. They did. Looks like they’re putting quite a bit of effort into this game too.”

Barbal Soft had been strongly impressed after seeing how Spirit Stone and Magic and Creature generated revenue by being developed in multiple directions.

They had already known Meta Soft made good games, but after seeing its ability to utilize IP beyond that, they completely submitted to Ras.

Of course, they were partners, not competitors, and they had no particular hostility. But there had still been an unspoken sense of rivalry.

When Meta Soft did various other businesses, they did not think much of it because those businesses were not greatly related to software.

But when they saw it create such new value from the item called a game, they clearly felt that Ras was on a different level.

In any case, Roxy and Jennifer played the game.

This really feels like becoming a team owner.

Roxy was impressed.

Since he liked baseball, he had actually imagined becoming a team owner and running a famous baseball team before. This game felt as though it realized everything he had wanted to do in that imagination.

Of course, actual team owners did not manage things in such detail, so it was closer to combining the roles of team owner, manager, and coach. But the team owner in a baseball fan’s imagination was precisely this kind of thing.

Honestly, Roxy was moved from the very beginning.

Training baseball players and placing them in positions was fun by itself.

But when he seriously entered the game, played matches, gathered money, and started trading players, it became incredibly thrilling.

“Oh!”

When he won with the deck he had created, he could not help letting out an exclamation. Of course, when he lost, he became just as gloomy, but analyzing why he had lost and supplementing those weaknesses was also exciting.

“It’s fairly fun.”

When Jennifer said that, Roxy wanted to shout that this was not merely “fairly fun” but a true god-tier game. Of course, he quickly understood that her reaction was weak because she did not have much interest in baseball.

Still, even apart from the enthusiast elements, simply managing according to rules toward the goal of victory provided enough fun, so it could definitely be called a well-made game.

“But I’m not sure about the online side. Trading will disappear, and the management elements will be greatly reduced. I wonder whether there will be anything to find fun in...”

Jennifer reacted skeptically toward the online side. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠But Roxy was actually looking forward to the online side even more, so instead of agreeing, he smiled bitterly.

Just imagining building his own team with all-star players and playing real matches against other people was thrilling enough.

Afterward, the QA Team and some employees also participated in testing, and their reactions were quite heated.

“God-tier! This is god-tier.”

Amans, who watched baseball fairly regularly, could not stop admiring it.

“Epek Ras really is the god of games. How did he even think of making a game like this?”

“You’re exaggerating... but it is fun.”

Kadanio gave a wry smile as though Amans was making too much fuss, but he also agreed that it was a fun game.

He was not particularly fond of sports, so baseball players and teams did not move him much. But the management elements were fun, and sports had many similarities to war, so it worked fairly well for someone like him who liked War Simulations.

No, since victory and defeat were more clearly divided than in war, perhaps it was even better to enjoy as a game.

Footnotes:

Translator’s Notes:

Managing Game — A simulation genre where the player manages a team, organization, or business rather than directly controlling action. Examples include sports management games where players recruit, train, and arrange athletes.

QA Team — “Quality Assurance Team,” a development team responsible for testing games, finding bugs, and checking whether systems work as intended.