Chapter 65: Fighters’ Club Arcade
Chapter 65: Fighters’ Club Arcade
Versus games were one of the genres that were especially entertaining to watch. Moreover, because it used the popular subject of boxing, it drew even more attention.
“It’s a boxing game?”
People gathered in small groups like this and watched the matches unfold. Then, among those who became interested, some naturally stacked up coins, and an endless tournament began.
At first, naturally, those who had encountered it first on PC held the advantage. But even then, the arcade version came out less than three months after the PC game’s release, so the difference was not that large.
People endlessly pushed in ten-piece coins and desperately moved the levers to defeat their opponents.
The reason this game became popular so quickly was partly because it possessed excellent gameplay in itself, but even more than that, the competitive element played a major role. Unlike Earth, games in this world were still strongly perceived as something enjoyed alone, so the shock was even more intense.
Like that, a fighting-game boom began blowing across the Republic of Smite.
“It truly is an incredible game!”
Brams of Arcade Game Land’s Management Team praised Fighters’ Club highly. This was not because of the game’s gameplay.
“A game with such good turnover. It almost makes me want to replace every machine in our shops with this. To think you developed something like this. Chairman, you really are an amazing person.”
“Ahaha. You flatter me.”
Ras awkwardly accepted Brams’s high praise with a laugh.
It was purely an impression from a management standpoint. And if one did the math, this reaction made sense. Ordinary games had a playtime of five minutes at the fastest, and close to ten minutes on average. That meant that was the time required to extract ten pieces from a customer.
But Fighters’ Club took only around two minutes per match. This meant the income could be at least 2.5 times to as much as 5 times higher. From a manager’s perspective, it probably felt like money was being copied.
Of course, Brams had also managed Arcade Game Land for quite some time now. Because of that, he understood that having various games was what drew people into the shops. Saying he wanted to replace everything was only a figure of speech.
In this way, Fighters’ Club shocked not only gamers but also the industry.
Naturally, arcade machine operators could not help paying attention to its astonishing turnover, and all of them began placing orders.
Unlike Arcade Game Land, small-scale operators who only ran a few game machines had no reason to care about proper balance, so they simply ordered nothing but Fighters’ Club.
And Fighters’ Club did not require the purchase of a dedicated machine the way many arcade games did. They only needed to buy the board, so from the perspective of small-scale operators, the burden was lighter. That naturally made it even more preferred.
“Orders are exploding!”
As orders poured in from everywhere, Panchi Games was practically screaming. The phones in the sales department kept ringing without stopping.
“President! There’s no way we can keep up with production!”
Ajabran shouted at Cheims, the president, with an expression that made him look half-insane. Cheims seemed troubled until the very end, but eventually made his decision.
“Fine. Let’s expand the production line.”
At first, they had even received help from uncomfortable competitors, trying somehow to meet orders without expanding the production line. Because they remembered nearly collapsing before when their reduced market share left them unable to support their own size, they had tried to avoid expansion as much as possible.
But the current order volume could never be handled through such stopgap measures. Orders were coming in at almost twice their capacity, so there was no way to endure it.
Nor could they give up. This was an opportunity for the company to grow rapidly all at once. How could they possibly throw it away?
Moreover, they had not forgotten their recent experience with the export of Pac-Man and Tetris.
Brunyard was already interested in their games, so there was no way it would simply pass over this fighting game. Cheims made his decision after looking that far ahead.
In any case, once Panchi Games somehow began keeping up with the order volume, Fighters’ Club started spreading throughout the Republic of Smite.
Bus stops, restaurants, pubs, cafés, tourist spots, and every other place where people gathered had it installed, and without fail, it bewitched people into inserting coins.
“Do you know that an arcade game called Fighters’ Club has been gaining tremendous popularity lately?”
It reached the point where, when Ras came home briefly to rest before going to Bert in the evening and turned on the TV, he saw this kind of news report.
The news showed many people gathered in a corner of a pub, playing Fighters’ Club. Drunken people around them tilted liquor bottles back while watching and cheering.
The two men seated in front of the machine focused on the monitor as though they could hear nothing else, and a large pile of coins could be seen stacked on one side of the machine.
“Haha...”
It did not feel real to Ras. Of course, he had heard that it was thriving at Arcade Game Land and that Panchi Games was also doing extremely well with it. But now that it had come all the way around and entered his eyes through the news, it felt less like reality and more like the world was deceiving him to make fun of him.
Like Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show.
However, the call that came from Barbal Soft not long afterward made him realize this was reality.
“Suddenly, one hundred thousand copies sold?”
The PC version of Fighters’ Club was definitely a hit game. However, normally, after several months passed since release, the upward momentum tended to break. Moreover, since it had been released with Hammer 1 specifications, its sales had not reached the level of his previous works.
Yet over the past week, an enormous quantity of one hundred thousand copies suddenly sold. A long, sharply pointed horn had suddenly risen from what had been a gentle sales curve.
“Yes. Right now, our business partners are all making a fuss and telling us to send more quickly.”
Roxy’s voice over the phone sounded extremely excited.
Ras also belatedly realized that the corners of his mouth had risen without him noticing. He had thought it would become popular, but this was truly beyond his imagination.
Fighting games were originally a fun genre, but they also had inherent limitations. Because they required time to master, they were difficult for newcomers to endure. In other words, the entry barrier was high.
That was why he had aimed for a brief hit, securing the genre first and promoting the genre itself. But since it had become such a hit right from the start, it seemed he could look further ahead.
This was not the only good news. The sales volume of joysticks had also begun rapidly increasing belatedly.
The graphics already looked hardly different from the arcade, and now the controls could feel similar too. People could not resist that.
“Chairman. We need to expand the factory.”
When Ras came to work the next day, Utaro personally came to him carrying documents and said that. Though he was normally a very calm man, he could not hide the excitement mixed into his voice.
Ras felt slightly afraid of expanding the factory, but Utaro had shown results so far. If this man was pushing this hard with this much excitement, it was almost certainly the right call.
And thinking about it, even though Arcade Game Land was still expanding aggressively these days, sales were increasing so explosively that the pressure of investment costs was disappearing.
This level of risk was more than manageable. Ras hesitated briefly, then signed the documents.
“Thank you! I’ll proceed immediately!”
Ras propped up his chin and looked at the door Utaro left through.
He had not predicted it, but the tide was coming in hard right now. He needed to row. Once such an opportunity passed, there was no knowing when it would come again. And conveniently, Ras had an idea suited to this situation.
Ras turned on the computer on one side of his desk and launched the word processor. Then he immediately began tapping on the keyboard.
The title stamped at the top of the document was “Fighters’ Club National Tournament.”
At present, Ras had installed Arcade Game Land branches in all twenty-seven major cities of the Republic of Smite. No, he had already expanded into some smaller cities as well, so he had more than enough capacity to hold a tournament.
Advertisements could be placed in Arcade Game Land branches where many gamers visited, and the preliminaries could likewise be held at each arcade. Tournament rules and such could also be conveyed to each branch through the Management Team.
The places where additional costs would be needed were probably the prize money, invitation expenses for preliminary qualifiers, and the venue for the main tournament.
Of course, for the main tournament, they could simply choose one of the larger shops and hold it there, but Ras also thought it might be good to use this opportunity to build a proper arena. Something like the small arenas that regularly held StarCraft professional leagues in the past.
“Ella. Please send this to the Arcade Game Land Management Team.”
“Yes!”
Ella had also become happy lately after hearing that Ras’s businesses were going well. So perhaps she was a little excited, because she answered in an energetic voice and showed a slightly playful smile.
The Management Team’s response to the plan was positive.
“A game tournament. How ingenious!”
Not long after Ras sent Ella, Brams immediately came to Ras’s room. He had come to confirm the details, such as how long the event would run, how many people would enter the main tournament, the scale of the event, and so on.
Since there were costs involved, Ras could not simply tell them to handle everything on their own. Still, Ras felt a little relieved. He had been slightly worried that someone might say it was an event that wasted unnecessary expenses.
“I’m glad it sounded all right.”
“Not at all. Truly. This is an astonishing method that can both extend the life of the game and strengthen the symbolism of our Arcade Game Land. I almost wonder why we didn’t think of it first.”
It was already a method widely used in ordinary sports and similar fields. And considering that Fighters’ Club was a game with competitive elements, it was an idea anyone might have thought of.
However, no one had yet taken that one step forward. When Ras, the chairman, became the first to do it, Brams once again thought this boy truly was someone capable of building such a business at such a young age.
A few days later, there was a young man named Srin passing by Arcade Game Land.
He could not stop by today because he was busy with work, but he was one of the arcade’s enthusiastic users. He had occasionally played arcade games before as well, but something had been different ever since this arcade opened.
It was nice that various games were gathered in one place, and it was also nice that he did not have to wait as long as he did on the streets. But more than that, he liked the fact that it was a space where many people gathered to play games.
Calling it heaven would be too much of an exaggeration, but it felt like a place full of enjoyment, or a place where one could go and have fun. Because of that feeling, even if he was not playing games in particular, just being there seemed to make him feel good.
Of course, it felt as though there were something in the air itself that gave people joy. Naturally, no such sweet scent actually existed.
If anything, it’s thick with cigarette smoke.
He chuckled softly and looked up, thinking he would at least take a glance at the sign, when something different from before caught his eye.
<Fighters’ Club National Tournament! You can participate simply by applying at this game hall.>
It was written in large letters on a huge cloth that wrapped around one and a half floors of the building, so it immediately caught the eye. Moreover, since it bore the name of the game enjoying the greatest popularity lately, it stood out even more.