Chapter 178: MTC Player and Joy Systems’ Worries
“A-Amazing. It truly feels as if I’ve entered an ancient battlefield.”
At first, while interviewing players, the announcer calmly reported reactions such as “It’s fun” or “It’s fascinating.” But this was his reaction after asking for permission to confirm it himself and joining one of the tables.
The announcer was a male Elf with a rather cold impression, but even he seemed to find it difficult to maintain composure before the illusions shown by MTC Player.
Most of the broadcast introduced MTC Game Hall in that manner.
However, it also included some mildly critical commentary.
“Some people have become so absorbed in this game that they neglect work and studies.”
“...”
But Ras did not flare up.
Among the critical letters and messages that occasionally came in, it was common to find ones that revealed outright malice.
Well, compared to calling it the devil’s creation, at least they’re not saying anything like that...
In particular, parent groups and religious organizations often sent aggressive messages as if they were dealing with a sworn enemy.
Of course, public broadcasting could not have said things in that manner anyway. Another reason Ras showed little reaction was because what they said was true.
Among hardcore gamers, there were indeed many who skipped school and camped out at game halls. The MTC Game Hall side was also trying to send such students back as best they could, but since it was not an adults-only game hall, it was not easy to identify students unless they were wearing uniforms.
Needless to say, the same applied to adults such as office workers. Of course, people who skipped work like students skipping school were very rare. But they did exist.
Since most game halls were directly operated, such cases reached Ras through reports, leaving him with complicated feelings.
Of course, he was grateful that people enjoyed the game he had made so much, but since some were clearly ruining their own lives, it felt unpleasant.
Still, he did not blame himself.
That was not Ras’s fault, but entirely the result of their own choices.
Well, they’ll manage their own lives.
If they became skilled enough from working that hard and later participated in tournaments as professional duelers, that would be fortunate. But surprisingly, people who sank into games so recklessly were rarely experts.
It was not quite true that people who lived diligently in real life were also good at games, but it was true that the conditions for becoming an expert included strong judgment and calculation skills.
Of course, since this could create troublesome issues, he did not leave it entirely alone.
At the very least, children who were visibly young or students in uniforms were sent away during class hours or late at night, and advisory notices were posted inside the game halls.
< Excessive immersion can harm daily life. >
< To enjoy games, you must protect your daily life. >
They were phrases like that.
They needed to do at least this much so that they could defend themselves later if criticism came in. Of course, Ras also intended to detect and prevent such cases as much as possible before that happened.
In any case, MTC became incredibly popular.
And countries where Meta Soft’s games had already entered and Spirit Space had taken root could learn about this heat and information from the Republic of Smite relatively easily, so they became greatly interested in it.
< When is a game hall coming to our side? >
< Before that, at least release some card packs here! >
Online service was already being provided.
It was a service that could be introduced immediately once servers were expanded.
And in the neighboring Brunyard Federation, card packs had already been released.
Formal production of the Brunyad version had not yet begun, but since it was a country where exports and imports of goods had always been active, card packs produced in the Republic of Smite had entered the market.
Of course, Ras had no intention of giving up on overseas markets.
He simply had not entered them yet because MTC Player production was insufficient. The domestic craze was so intense that merely meeting demand inside the Republic of Smite was already difficult.
Thanks to that, overseas players had no choice but to wait anxiously with their fingers in their mouths.
Of course, some wealthy and fanatical gamers even flew to the Republic of Smite and visited MTC Game Halls.
A game that realized a virtual world through illusion magic was that groundbreaking.
“Can’t we make something like this too?”
Among those amazed by MTC Player, some highly evaluated the potential of this illusion magic and wanted to create something similar themselves.
President Kokaton of Joy Systems, the company that created Talados, was one of them.
After visiting an MTC Game Hall and enjoying one round of the game, he admired it for quite some time. Then he met the eyes of Ataros, who sat across the table from him, and spoke in a voice mixed with expectation.
Vice President Ataros had risen to that position through his contributions in developing Talados.
“...It will probably be difficult.”
After thinking for a moment, he soon shook his head.
Kokaton was not suggesting that they create a machine exactly like MTC Player, but that they apply this illusion magic to a game console. However, there was a reason no such product had appeared until now.
“This machine is possible because it only needs to show one-time illusions.”
There was a great difference between MTC Player, which created illusions using illustrations as a medium and showed images of already determined outcomes, and a game display.
First, the lack of a way to manipulate illusions as desired was a major issue. Taking Metallic Jumper as an example, the illusion basically needed to move according to player input, but they were already blocked there.
Of course, since the illusion was created based on imagination, it would move somewhat similarly. But that was all.
The biggest obstacle was that in a game, the user did not decide the result. The computer judged it.
“Several institutions have been researching ways to reflect information from machines for a long time, but there have been no particular results.”
The closest method they had come up with as a solution was to notify the user of signals hinting at the result, making the user unconsciously imagine that result and then realizing it as an illusion. This was also the method used in MTC Player.
However, computer games had far too many input and output values, making it difficult to apply.
Moreover, another obstacle was that illusions were not that precise.
The more complex a game became, the more errors occurred in the illusion itself. If a part that the user had not recognized at first was recognized later, the illusion became strangely tangled.
That was why, before MTC Player, the only games that had applied illusions were things like chess at most.
“So it really is difficult...”
Kokaton smacked his lips in disappointment.
After hearing news that the new CPU had been released, he too had been planning a new console game incorporating it. Then this amazing device called MTC Player appeared, so he wondered whether they could apply it to the new console.
But one could not make the impossible possible.
He crossed his arms and stared fixedly at the box-shaped MTC Player. He understood it was impossible, but it was hard to completely give up his lingering attachment.
That was because he knew how incredibly popular the card game called MTC was.
When he heard that its users numbered in the tens of millions, he was truly shocked.
Frankly, it was a number he found difficult to imagine.
No, not just Kokaton. Almost no one working in the game industry would have imagined a single game could sell that much.
Anyone who was not a complete newcomer ignorant of the industry, but someone who understood reality to some degree, would at least know the concept of overall market size.
But MTC was a game that shattered that common sense.
Honestly, Kokaton had already been shocked by Spirit Stone’s success in the past. Its cumulative sales had already surpassed four million copies.
At a time when the concept of overseas markets had been faint, it had pioneered that field and achieved sales that far surpassed the one-million mark, which had been considered a nearly impossible wall until then.
But MTC had achieved a feat that made even Spirit Stone look modest. And it was still ongoing.
For Kokaton, who worked in the same game industry, he could not help finding it both enviable and dazzling.
Moreover, he had already seen Metallic Jumper’s success in the past, benchmarked it, and achieved considerable results. In fact, beyond that, Talados had many games that imitated Meta Soft’s popular works.
That was why he wondered whether, even if applying it to the next-generation console was impossible, they could at least make a game similar to MTC.
There must definitely be people whose tastes don’t match MTC, or who are tired of it because there’s too much of it.
They could create a card game using a completely different subject, such as SF, or with slightly different rules.
However, after imagining and thinking about various ideas for a long while, he eventually shook his head.
It did not seem like there would be no demand, but considering MTC’s sales, he did not think it would create a very large response.
MTC had already practically dominated the market.
No matter how he thought about it, if MTC and the game he wanted to make both existed, it was obvious that the majority would choose MTC, which was hugely popular and had already secured many users.
Moreover, MTC Game Hall had already spread stores nationwide.
If a latecomer wanted to challenge the market with the same item, they would need aggressive investment, and that meant fighting with financial power.
A financial-power battle with Meta Soft? Impossible.
Talados was doing fairly well in its own way, but it could not compare to Meta Corporation. Even if one looked only at the game side, its sales scale probably did not even reach a quarter of Meta Soft’s.
The number of games released was probably dozens of times higher on their side, but Meta Soft was a legendary developer that had turned every game it released into a hit.
In particular, Spirit Stone’s four million copies were practically a myth in the industry. That one game alone had sales close to half of all Talados games released so far combined.
It did not seem wise to pick a fight they could not win and irritate the giant of the industry for no reason.
But that did not mean he intended to completely give up on that illusion magic system.
We just need to make something other than a card game, don’t we?
Right now, he could not think of a game that suited this illusion magic system better than MTC, but there had to be something good.
“And since something called MTC Player has already appeared, among the people who have experienced it, there will definitely be people who want this illusion magic applied to other games too.”
“That’s true. There certainly will be.”
Ataros nodded with a serious expression.
This was an important point in its own way.
In the end, a product existed to satisfy consumers’ desires and demand. Quickly reading newly created demand and satisfying it was one of the oldest formulas for success.
And so, a new project began at Joy Systems.
Many planners attached themselves to it.
It was a project pushed by President Kokaton, but MTC and MTC Player were also major matters of interest for everyone in the game industry.
The planners thought hard.
They had to decide what kind of game to make.
Because this was not electronic entertainment, Joy Systems’ specialty, but a game for the new platform called an illusion magic system, it was even more difficult.
And after long consideration, what most planners came up with was a direction that modified electronic games.
After all, this was easier than creating something from complete nothingness.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Professional Dueler — A player who competes professionally in card-game tournaments. The term parallels real-world professional trading card game competitors.
Public Broadcasting — General television broadcasting accessible to the broader public, unlike niche media or game-specific channels.
Console Game — A game designed for a dedicated home gaming system, such as Talados in this setting.