Chapter 79: Meta Hardware and Its Growing Influence
Chapter 79: Meta Hardware and Its Growing Influence
Pampi especially liked Meta Soft’s games. So whenever he entered port, the first thing he did was look for any new releases.
Recently, Tetris 2 had come out, and he bought and enjoyed it. That kind of versus game was not bad either.
He originally preferred quietly enjoying games alone. But calling his colleagues into his room and pressing joysticks together had its own flavor too.
In any case, his rest after returning to the city for the first time in a while was almost over. The time to set sail again was approaching.
Before leaving home, Pampi headed to the electronics store he often visited to see if there were any good games.
“Huh?”
As he looked over the packages on the game shelf, he found one game and tilted his head. It said it was a new release from Meta Soft.
It had not even been a month since Tetris 2 came out. Meta Soft was a company with a fairly fast game release cycle, but one month was too fast.
He thought he had heard somewhere that the rest period after releasing a game was roughly that long.
Pampi carefully checked the game company’s name.
He wondered if it might be a knockoff. In this country, a capitalist nation where lawsuits were freely available, no one would dare impersonate a company name outright, but there were often cases where games were released under similar company names.
Meta Soft, in particular, had many such cases. Mata Soft, Metaa Soft, Manta Soft, and so on.
But no matter how carefully he looked, it really was Meta Soft. Pampi still felt very suspicious, but since the company name was certain, he decided to buy it. He was about to set sail soon, and if he could bring one more Meta Soft game with him, there was nothing better.
And in any case, one game was not extremely expensive. Of course, it was not cheap either, but compared to other sailors pouring money into women, alcohol, and gambling, it was not much.
“Ah. Please give me this too.”
Pampi also bought the magazine called Gamers, which was apparently hot these days. He had heard the name last time when he went to Arcade Game Land, and since it was a specialized game magazine, he was curious about what it contained.
On his way home, he bought various things to eat, tossed them roughly onto the table, then lay sideways on the sofa and opened the magazine first.
Oh. This is pretty fun.
He had thought it would be similar to a computer magazine, but there was a lot to read. On top of that, there was even a fairly entertaining manga in the back. He thought he would probably keep subscribing from now on.
“Huh?”
He read through the magazine articles one by one. Then, in an article introducing new games releasing that month, he found the title of the game he had just bought.
For now, it seemed certain that it was a Meta Soft game. And perhaps anticipating the questions players like Pampi might have, the reporter who wrote the article also explained how a game could have come out on such a short cycle.
“Ahh... So they created another development team?”
Because he had to spend months on a cargo ship with few people around, he talked to himself a lot, and he muttered as though he were having a conversation with the magazine.
He wondered about the new team’s skill. But when he confirmed that Tetris 2, which he had bought before, was actually the new team’s work, while the newly released Metallic Jumper was the existing team’s work, he felt relieved.
The magazine gave fairly detailed information about Metallic Jumper.
There was an explanation saying it was based on the test version and could differ from the released product, but he did not particularly care.
After learning a bit about the game like that, he wanted to try it. He immediately stood up and pressed the computer’s power button.
It was the computer he usually kept on the ship. It was quite heavy, but as soon as he returned, he brought it down first and took it home. That was partly because the ship was going in for inspection, but even if that had not been the case, it was still the ship he had been trapped on for months, so he did not want to go anywhere near it during his vacation.
“Oh. It’s cute. A robot?”
Pampi read quite a lot of books during long voyages, including science fiction novels, so he immediately understood what the character was.
He jumped in place a few times, then soon began moving the character forward. His first impression was good. The graphics were cute and bright, and the sound felt cheerful and addictive.
Then, after trying the transformation he had seen in the magazine and realizing its appeal, he began searching for question marks with his eyes lit up. He did not know why, but it was incredibly fun. The way the shape changed was one thing, but the fact that the character could use abilities it could not normally use felt fascinating.
Unfortunately, there was a time limit, but that actually seemed to make him even more eager.
At some point, Pampi became absorbed in the game as if he were in a trance. It felt as if he had become the little robot himself. He ran, jumped, and wandered endlessly through the world inside the monitor.
And when hunger woke him from that dream, he felt greatly relieved that he had chosen to buy this game.
I almost left without this.
The one disappointing thing was that he would not be able to buy the next issue of Gamers, which might contain a strategy guide for this game. Looking at the departure date marked on the calendar hanging on the wall, he felt deeply regretful.
But soon, as he thought about the long voyage ahead, he figured that much time should be enough for him to become skilled enough to clear it.
There were many adults who enjoyed Metallic Jumper like this, but the ones who truly became hooked on it were, unsurprisingly, children.
It was because it was cool and cute, and above all, because of its simple gameplay.
Parents bought this game because it did not seem violent, then began suffering headaches because their children sat in front of the computer, barely ate properly, and endlessly pressed the jump key.
Needless to say, it was a great success.
The initial stock had long since sold out, and Barbal Soft had to busily search for factories in order to produce additional stock quickly.
This was not something Ras had particularly intended.
However, starting with Fighters’ Club, then Tetris 2, and then immediately following with Metallic Jumper, he released a string of games compatible with Hammer Computer. Moreover, the timing overlapped with the publication of the magazine, so the game contents were advertised and explained alongside promotion, while also receiving good reviews and decent sales.
This encouraged people who had still been observing from the sidelines to adopt Hammer Computer.
For Ras, this was a good thing. In truth, seeing Hammer Computer do well did make him feel a little jealous. But in any case, the more widely new computers spread, the more Meta Soft’s games would sell.
However, the sight of a game company influencing computer distribution like this was quite impressive to hardware manufacturers.
Until then, software had generally been viewed as an accessory that supported hardware. So when machines with new specifications appeared, people saw software as something that would emerge in the market to match them.
This was still not particularly wrong.
But when they saw the reverse phenomenon, where software had a strong influence on the spread of hardware, some people in the computer industry began looking at software from a different perspective.
And Meta Soft, which created this phenomenon, made its name deeply remembered.
Without Ras even realizing it, he and his company had gained strong influence in the industry.
This was not limited to the Republic of Smite or the Brunyard Federation. It quietly spread among people in the computer industry around the world.
Leisurely enjoying a game’s release and popularity was something only the vacationing development teams could do.
Of course, Ras was also happy when he heard about the success through Barbal Soft and the magazine company’s information network. But he only celebrated briefly by eating a nice dinner with Ella, then returned to work busily.
Since he had so many businesses running, there were many things he needed to pay attention to.
In particular, the crane game Meta Hardware released this time was Ras’s main concern.
“For now, the stock to be placed in Arcade Game Land is ready.”
“What happened with the delivery issue?”
“We’ve also created a schedule so the newly hired trucks can deliver them sequentially.”
Ras nodded with a satisfied expression at Utaro’s immediate answer. He truly wondered what he would have done without this man.
Quite some time had passed since the game tournament ended.
The number of people had not particularly decreased, and Arcade Game Land was still thriving. But at times like this, one needed to keep holding onto customers and attracting attention.
And since the warehouse storing the machines was slowly becoming full, he judged that it was time to release them.
Buying transport trucks was quite a burdensome matter.
If the crane game failed to become popular, or if Meta Hardware could not quickly develop other useful products, a huge amount of money would be wasted as is.
If things went wrong, he might even end up unintentionally cutting ties with Barbal Soft and switching to in-house distribution. After all, he could not leave the trucks and drivers idle.
In any case, while delivering the machines to Arcade Game Land branches across the country, Ras also placed advertisements in various computer magazines and newspapers, including Gamers.
And to observe the crane game’s response, Ras began commuting with Ella to a nearby Arcade Game Land branch.
“There are still a lot of people.”
Ella admired the sight of many people entering and leaving the arcade across the road.
It was not that she particularly disliked games. But since she had a Hammer Computer in her own room and also played games with Ras when she visited his room, she had no particular reason to come to an arcade.
“Yeah.”
Ras was the same. He sometimes thought he should go around conducting inspections, but it had not been that long since he went to Ranchelt, and he had been busy with various things, so he had not been able to make time.
He would probably need to make time during this vacation period and visit somewhere.
The two moved away from the car and began walking toward the crosswalk.
They were not exactly disguised, but they wore more casual clothing. After all, expensive suits stood out too much. And while they had no need to hide their identities, it would be annoying if attention and interest gathered around them, so they wore clothes that looked as ordinary as possible.
As they walked, Ras glanced at Ella.
She wore an embroidered check-patterned top, a yellow skirt with a floral pattern, and pink shoes. The outfit could have looked old-fashioned, but perhaps because the model was good, she looked somehow cute and lively.
After smiling foolishly for no reason, Ras escorted Ella across the crosswalk and headed toward the arcade.
“Welcome!”
Perhaps because they had deliberately come to Branch No. 4 instead of Branch No. 1, where the employees knew their faces, no one seemed to recognize them in particular. Ras inwardly felt relieved and entered.
It had been a while since he had been somewhere crowded, so he felt slightly nervous. But everyone was busy focusing on games, so not many people paid attention to Ras and Ella. In Ella’s case, however, there were occasionally people who turned to look.
The crane game had been placed near the entrance, just as instructed, so there was no need to look around for it.
“There are quite a lot of people, aren’t there?”
Ella whispered into Ras’s ear while looking at the crowd in front of the crane game. For now, the initial response did not seem bad.
However, unlike what he had expected, more men than female gamers were clinging to the machine, moving the lever with grim expressions.
Of course, even on Earth, men also played crane games quite a lot. But for some reason, Ras felt that the crane game was popular less because it was fun, and more because people were trying it out from curiosity toward a new machine.
In other words, it was still too early to call it a success.