Chapter 174: Dnallin’s Worries and the Birth of a New Genre
Chapter 174: Dnallin’s Worries and the Birth of a New Genre
First, there was advertising, the method web games had chosen in their early days. Perhaps because they were played on the web, they generated revenue by attaching banner advertisements, which many websites at the time used as a revenue model.
However, this had clear limits. In the early days, there were not many internet users or gamers, so revenue was low. In fact, Ras’s Spirit Space could also be considered similar to the early days of the internet on Earth. Of course, since he held a monopoly over the supply of online services worldwide, he was in a far more favorable position than the web game developers of that era.
And Ras had knowledge of the future.
Not advertising or simple usage fees, but the wonderful revenue model called “paid monetization” created by game developers on Earth.
Simply put, if he wanted to sell resources, sell units, and even sell action points, he could sell every element that appeared in the game. Beyond that, magic defense passes, magic defense breakthrough passes, attack nullification passes, attack-nullification-pass nullification passes, and so on. For Ras, who had seen the abyss that the still-naive people of this world could not even imagine, it was far too easy.
However, Ras did not particularly like Pay to Win either. And the people of this world would still find it hard to accept, so skins would become the main focus for now.
Even if they were not necessarily skins, he could also add random heroes obtained through payment. Their stats would not differ much from heroes obtainable in-game, but their illustrations would be drawn especially cool. If so, there would definitely be people willing to spend money on them.
No matter how performance-focused someone was, if there were a bald middle-aged knight and a beautiful Elf, they would probably want to use the Elf. Except for a few people with unusual tastes, of course.
The key was price.
Of course, people here might wonder whether anyone would spend money to buy something in a game rather than reality.
But Ras knew the truth proven by the history of games on Earth.
Game items were also governed by ordinary economic logic. If consumers judged the price to be reasonable, they would eventually spend money.
First, I’ll need to create a department specializing in web games.
After receiving the report that Littlea had agreed to join the company, Ras ordered the creation of a specialized web game development team under Spirit Space.
They would develop new web games as well, but the real purpose was to develop monetization systems such as skins that would be added later, once enough users were secured.
Far, far away from Kames City, where Meta Soft’s headquarters was located, across the border in the neighboring Brunyard Federation, there was the office of Meta Soft’s Brunyad Development Team.
“We fixed the sales bug.”
“Oh. Well done.”
Team leader Dnallin’s expression brightened at the news that they had fixed the bug that had been troubling them all this time. It was one of the bugs discovered after they had sent the test version to headquarters through Spirit Space.
They had fixed everything else quickly, but this bug, where sales increased tenfold under specific conditions, was tangled up in so many places that fixing one side caused another problem to appear. They had suffered over it for quite a while.
“Then we’re done now, right?”
“Yes. We still need to run it once more, but for now, we fixed everything that was pointed out.”
Mallidon, who had proposed the project and worked passionately as the lead planner, gave a somewhat vague answer, perhaps because he was still uneasy.
“Right...”
Dnallin nodded at the news that it was finished either way, then bent the back he had been keeping straight and leaned forward with both arms on the desk. His tension had loosened somewhat, but he also seemed worried.
In truth, he was not sure whether this game could truly succeed.
Of course, success or failure could only be known after release. Still, the people developing a game were supposed to have confidence and motivation.
And when development first began, he had felt that way.
Mallidon’s proposal had sounded plausible, and above all, they had received the okay from the chairman at headquarters.
However, as development progressed and the outline of the game began to take shape, doubts began to arise.
The game felt too specialized.
It really feels like running a business, but can people think of this as a game and enjoy it?
There were too many things to pay attention to, and he thought those things were likely to act as stress factors for players. There were games where people could easily feel fun, like Bomb Special Forces, the previous game his team had developed, so he wondered whether anyone would deliberately play something like this.
Of course, tastes were diverse, so there would not be no one at all. But games had to sell a lot in order to make a profit. For Dnallin, who remembered their difficult times in the past, he could not help worrying.
However, the game was already nearly complete, and even after headquarters conducted testing, there had been no particularly negative reaction, so he did not say those thoughts aloud.
My way of thinking might just be old-fashioned.
Thinking about it, quite a few unusual games had been pouring out and gaining popularity lately.
When he remembered how, before entering Meta Soft, he had mostly developed obvious shooting games or clone games without creating anything particularly creative, he felt that perhaps his own judgment simply was not very good.
Yet even after he moved toward acknowledging his own shortcomings, his worries did not disappear completely. That was because of the game headquarters had released recently.
Doesn’t it overlap a little?
Dnallin was as diligent as he was responsible, so he checked most newly released games. Naturally, the same applied to games from Meta Soft’s headquarters. That was why he had also played Professional Baseball Manager, which had come out recently.
It felt somewhat unfamiliar, but perhaps because it used baseball as its subject, it was fairly fun. Moreover, it had management elements and received a good response from the market, so it somewhat reduced his anxiety about the game his development team was making.
However, once Professional Baseball Manager’s popularity flared up beyond expectations, he began worrying that their own game might end up being killed by friendly fire.
In truth, the two games were quite different, but in Dnallin’s eyes, they both contained management elements, so they seemed like similar games.
Still, even if Dnallin worried, the game was already complete, and as a team leader rather than the president of an independent company, he could not overturn the project.
All he could do was ensure that there were as few problems as possible.
And so, a few days later, Arcade Empire was transmitted to Meta Soft through Spirit Space under the name of a completed version.
It really is unusual.
Pana inwardly admired Arcade Empire while testing it. She had played the alpha version before, but the completed version felt different again. There were no bugs, and overall, it felt extremely polished.
In fact, Pana had an interest in running a company. More precisely, she had an interest in the position of president.
She was one of the founding contributors of Meta Soft and one of the few people who had personally seen with her own eyes everything from the company’s creation to its growth up to the present.
Because of that, she knew how impressive Ras was, but at the same time, she could also think that perhaps she might be able to do it too. After all, she had seen and verified with her own eyes the process of success that most others could only guess at.
And in the early days, she had handled a workload that could be called excessive. Perhaps because of that, she had a slight admiration for the authority of a company president, the kind of power that had allowed him to assign that much work to her.
However, that was still far removed from sincerely wanting to become independent and establish her own company.
She was now a working adult with some career experience, and because this was a workplace, she had come to understand reality quite well.
Even the graphics team leader position she currently held felt burdensome and troublesome in terms of responsibility. A chairman’s position, where one had to be responsible not only for Meta Soft but also for several other companies and an enormous number of employees, looked impressive, but at the same time, it looked horrifying.
That was exactly why this game was extremely interesting to her.
Moreover, it involved operating Arcade Game Land, the most famous business among the companies owned by her boss Ras, so it was even more enjoyable.
“Ah. Another deficit...”
That did not mean she was good at it.
She was a manager herself, but perhaps because she did not really handle money, her control over the financial side was poor.
So she kept bringing in games indiscriminately because they looked flashy, only to fall into deficit.
To optimize the business, there were endless elements to consider. Each game had projected popularity points by age, race, and gender, so the player had to analyze the commercial district before bringing them in. Customer types also changed by time period, so the ratio of games had to be adjusted accordingly. If someone simply brought games in recklessly, losses like this were inevitable.
In this regard, Garazt, with his meticulous science-and-engineering-type brain, had the advantage.
He played the game while creating a separate table sheet, and thanks to that, he achieved stable growth. However, this game could not be conquered through neat calculations alone.
There were parts that relied on probability, and there were also gambling moves that could turn everything around at once. Garazt tended to lack boldness, so his growth was slow.
In that respect, Nebrania was somewhat better.
Oh. Success.
She brought in a game with a low success probability but the potential to hit big, quickly increasing her initial capital.
Then she gambled again and spent a large sum to host a game tournament.
For game tournaments, the success rate and great success rate increased depending on the game’s popularity, the number of arcade locations, and their popularity.
Since the hosting cost was not small, people usually attempted it only after raising the probability quite a bit, but Nebrania simply went for it at a 30 percent success rate.
Since it was only a game anyway, and since she usually had a poker face, Nebrania waited for the result with the same chic expression as always.
But inside, she was quite nervous.
Unexpectedly, Nebrania was also rather serious about games.
No, considering that she had previously participated in tournaments and often showed her gaming skills at arcades, perhaps it was not that unexpected.
In any case, once the tournament began, large banners were hung outside her arcade inside the monitor, and when the tournament day arrived, the stadium she had rented appeared on the event screen, alternating between shots of the audience, players, and operating staff.
A short while later, a message appeared.
< The game tournament was a box-office success. >
Yes!
Once her gamble succeeded, Nebrania clenched her fist and unconsciously glanced toward the desk of her gaming friend Jenny.
But Jenny herself was only clicking her mouse with a troubled expression, unable to progress properly through the game.
It was because this game was too far removed from her tastes.
At least filling an arcade with game machines and decorating it was tolerable enough, but once it came time to operate it, it only gave her a headache.
No, where am I supposed to find the fun in this?
Perhaps if it were multiplayer and they competed with each other for rankings, it might stimulate her strong competitive drive enough for her to play it.
Genres like this tended to sharply divide likes and dislikes.
Ras observed several people like Jenny, but he was not particularly disappointed. Tycoon-style games were originally like that.
In truth, when Ras was on Earth, aside from Fish-Shaped Bun Tycoon, he had never really enjoyed tycoon-style games properly.
No, SimCity could be considered a similar genre too, so maybe that’s not true?
He remembered having quite a bit of fun with SimCity.
Some people even regarded it as the origin of the tycoon series. It was also the most successful IP in this genre.
Because of that, Ras planned to eventually develop SimCity through the Brunyad Development Team too. After the new computer was developed, that is. It would be difficult to implement SimCity on current computers.
In any case, since headquarters testing found no particular problems either, the game was immediately passed over to Barbal Soft.
Not long afterward, it was officially released.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Pay to Win — A monetization structure where players can gain gameplay advantages through paid purchases.
Banner Advertisement — A rectangular display advertisement commonly used on websites, especially during the early internet era, as a basic online revenue model.
Skin — A cosmetic item that changes the appearance of a character, unit, or object without necessarily changing performance.
Tycoon Game — A management simulation genre centered on operating businesses, facilities, or industries. These games often focus on money flow, expansion, optimization, and customer management.
Fish-Shaped Bun Tycoon — Refers to Bungeoppang Tycoon, a Korean management simulation game centered on selling fish-shaped pastries.
SimCity — A city-building simulation game series first released in 1989, widely regarded as one of the most influential management simulation games.
Poker Face — A neutral facial expression that does not reveal one’s emotions, originally associated with card games such as poker.