Chapter 147: WGAME’s Debut
“How about making the spirits’ abilities slightly stronger, around ten percent if the player collects all of them, and gradually increasing Spirit Affinity?”
Characters born with high Spirit Affinity could capture powerful spirits immediately even without collecting this kind of collection, but most users could run into a wall because of the Spirit Affinity issue after progressing through spirit content to a certain extent.
By collecting the collection through events, that ceiling would naturally be broken through. Even if they could not collect the very highest legendary-grade spirits, they would be able to collect most ordinary spirits.
That way, new users could also reach the mid-tier relatively easily through spirit content, so it also matched the purpose of the content.
“And since all the effects are related to spirits, if they don’t use spirits, they don’t need to do it. If they’re interested in spirits, there aren’t many spirit-related enhancement methods, so they’ll naturally end up touching the collection. The increase in stress caused by this content should also be limited.”
“That sounds good.”
Insu nodded at that.
Eric was one of the players showing great interest in spirits. Even now, he was looking at the empty slots in the collection and immediately proceeding with the next quest.
‘How long will it take to fill all this?’
However, this spirit content could not bring over every important element of Pokémon exactly as it was. Most of it had been implemented similarly, but some parts had not, and the trade system in particular had been excluded entirely.
It could not be helped. The service foundation was different.
Pokémon included trading to make use of the Game Boy’s communication function and to strengthen communication and community between gamers. For that purpose, it released two versions of the game at once and placed monsters that only appeared in each version, making it so the Pokédex could only be completed through trading.
(Translator’s Notes: Pokédex — In Pokémon, an in-game encyclopedia that records information on captured or encountered Pokémon. It became a representative example of creature-collection completion systems.)
But spirits were fundamentally content built on top of TLF Online, an MMORPG. There was no need to strengthen the community through such a method, and if spirits could be traded, it would only cause side effects.
First, people would overhunt spirits in order to sell them, and since players could obtain the spirits they needed through trading, the reason to progress through spirit content and collect them personally would disappear.
So Insu borrowed the fantasy setting often used in stories where spirits appeared, where spirits were bound to spirit masters, and made spirit stones containing captured spirits into untradeable items.
‘This does feel a bit iffy, though.’
Honestly, Insu did not like restricting trade. Because of that, at first, he had tried thinking of various workarounds.
“What about a setting where we don’t block trading itself, but only the person who captured the spirit can summon it?”
“That would certainly make trading spirit stones themselves meaningless.”
Suhyeon answered, but when he looked unconvinced, Insu brought up another opinion.
“Then how about making it so spirit stones can’t be traded for other currency and can only be exchanged for other spirit stones?”
Suhyeon looked troubled for a moment, then licked his lips once and opened his mouth.
“I think that kind of method would have some side effects. In the end, limiting trades to spirit stones only is still a trade restriction. And if someone buys one of those spirit stones without knowing and then finds out they can’t summon it, the buyer is highly likely to just get irritated.”
Insu fell silent for a moment as if he had no answer, then let out a sigh.
“That’s true.”
Moreover, implementing a system like that would be quite troublesome, so simply adding an untradeable setting was the cleanest and most effective choice.
They had also considered making captured spirits bind directly rather than becoming items at all, but that would require a separate system, and it would lose the structure of summoning spirits through a medium. So they ultimately made it this way.
‘Still, unoccupied spirit stones and evolution stones can be traded, so interaction and community between spirit masters won’t be blocked.’
In any case, since the early reaction was not bad, it seemed they would need to continue watching it closely.
If it gained a certain level of popularity, they might be able to make goods and raise the IP’s profile, then later try an independent project.
Right now, it was not as if he could make a console game, and there was no particular way to use the IP from another world called Pokémon, so he had used it to strengthen TLF Online, the business most important to him. But still, this IP was too valuable to just use once and discard.
‘Of course, I don’t intend to force something that won’t work.’
[This is pretty fun.]
[It feels like they added a package game.]
[Cool and cute!]
[When I played before, the game felt pretty overwhelming, but now it feels more like an RPG.]
[Ah, I want to make a party using only spirits!]
But looking at the community reactions, it did not seem completely impossible.
When WGAME first launched, the only games available were TLF1 and MFN. On top of that, even though they were popular titles, they were old games that had been released quite some time ago.
Because of that, neither the Strategic Planning Team nor Insu had particularly high expectations. But unexpectedly, sales were fairly good.
In TLF1’s case, it sold eight thousand copies from the first day. After the first week passed, it reached twenty-five thousand copies, and after a month passed, it sold as many as forty thousand copies.
‘What?’
Insu was somewhat bewildered. It was an old game that had been released years ago, and since it was a popular and famous title, he assumed that everyone who wanted to buy it back when it was released had already bought it.
But this was something Insu had failed to calculate properly.
TLF1 had been released in 1990, so seven years had already passed. Among the gamers from back then, there were still many who continued playing games, but enough time had passed for some to age out and for a later generation to appear as customers.
And Parallel Soft still had a strong reputation as a game developer, while the TLF series itself was also famous. Moreover, TLF1 had been developed with specs that were somewhat excessive for the standards of the time, and because it used 2D graphics that aged relatively well, even by current standards, the graphics looked more than decent.
On top of that, because it was a rerelease and because of the nature of ESD as a platform, the price itself had been set quite low.
[$14.99]
There were enough conditions for gamers to show interest.
In fact, it might have stopped at this level only because ESD was still unfamiliar and internet conditions were not very good.
And since it was an old game, its file size was smaller compared to recent games, making it downloadable even with slow internet. That probably also influenced these sales.
[Unless there are major changes, we expect it to sell roughly two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand copies over one year.]
That was the Strategic Planning Team’s report.
Insu was happy that the game had sold well, but more than that, he was delighted that gamers had responded to WGAME.
‘At this level, there will definitely be developers who take interest.’
Around a month after WGAME launched, one game that had finally finished localization work could be registered.
<Anis Continent Story 1>
Since the translation team had many works to handle, rather than translating them sequentially, they outsourced to translators and worked on multiple games at once. Even so, because the translated text had to be reviewed and computer work had to be done, the releases inevitably had to come out with some spacing.
Setting the price was the developer’s role.
However, Parallel Soft, as the platform company, could make suggestions. In particular, overseas games were hard to call complete solo launches because of the localization work, and since the developers had limited information about the American market, they had no choice but to listen to Parallel Soft.
‘And since ESD itself is an unfamiliar distribution method, they have no choice but to be even more cautious.’
In any case, Insu presented WGAME’s first new game and advertised it through several channels.
If he followed his heart, he would have placed a huge advertisement on WET’s main page, but the internet had grown rapidly, and WET’s status had also risen tremendously. By now, placing a twenty-four-hour display ad on the main page required fifteen thousand dollars.
Of course, WET belonged to Insu, but if he used that space himself, the opportunity cost of receiving fifteen thousand dollars would disappear.
And expectations for Anis Continent Story 1 were not that high.
‘Considering its significance as WGAME’s first outside game, I could invest to some extent, though.’
They would keep releasing games from now on, so they could not run large advertisements every time. This was not only a matter of Parallel Soft’s position, but also the game developer’s position, which made it even more difficult. So it was better not to create such a precedent in the first place.
Instead, however, they bought cheap banners on community pages, emphasized WGAME, and placed advertisements there. They also carried out an operation where they disguised posts on community boards as if they were written by users.
It could be called stealth marketing or native marketing, but in 1997, there were no related regulations, so it was not particularly illegal, and there was no such awareness either. Even if they were caught, it would probably only look like a fresh marketing method.
(Translator’s Notes: Stealth marketing — Marketing designed to look like ordinary user conversation or organic interest rather than open advertising.)
(Translator’s Notes:Native marketing — Advertising designed to blend naturally into the surrounding platform or community format.)
[Has anyone tried the new game that came out on WGAME?]
[I heard it’s a Japanese game, so it should be perfect for people who like JRPGs.]
[It took less time to download than I expected. It’s cheap too.]
To Insu’s eyes, some posts were obviously advertisements, but judging by the comments, nobody seemed to have noticed.
‘Ah, should I have waited and released a more mainstream game first?’
After waiting a long time and finally releasing the game, anxiety suddenly surged over him.
In truth, this was not such a minor genre either, but since it was an RPG style that appealed more to the East than the West, he worried that if they began with this, people might mistakenly assume they would continue releasing only this kind of genre.
Come to think of it, this also had many titles in the series. But thinking about it again, TLF and MFN had already been released before this and received good reactions, so maybe people would not misunderstand like that. In any case, he felt uneasy.
For now, the early sales atmosphere was not bad.
The game itself and the developer did not have brand power, but the distributor, Parallel Soft, was famous. WGAME had just begun, and since this was the first outside title uploaded to it, it was inevitably receiving a lot of attention.
And the introduction page within WGAME was also quite good. Adding videos like Steam was impossible, but they had included several images. The page Lunaria had personally prepared in English was high-quality enough to clearly explain what the game was while also making people interested.
‘It’s already five thousand copies.’
The price was also only $9.99, which made it easy to buy impulsively. It was roughly the cost of one book or two movies, so it was a relatively easy amount to spend. Considering that ordinary new games cost around fifty to sixty dollars, it definitely felt cheap.
What mattered now was people’s reactions. Of course, he meant actual reactions, not advertising posts he had ordered employees to upload.
And about three hours after release, review posts and reaction scores began appearing in WGAME’s review section.
<It’s a little simple, but playable.>
Positive
<The characters are cute!>
Positive
<It’s decent, but feels a little plain?>
Neutral
<It feels like a game I’ve seen somewhere before. Still, I think it’s fairly well made.>
Positive
<This is totally my taste! It’s not hard, the story is fun, and it’s really clean.>
Very Positive
There were quite a few negative reviews as well, but the overall evaluation moved between Neutral and Positive before eventually settling at Positive.
Since the response was not bad and the number of buyers was not small, this brought in more gamers again. People also began talking about it in communities and elsewhere.