Pride and Prejudice
"Good lord. There was actually a studio out there making games like this in complete silence... What was it called again? PlayForge? Did you have any previous work?"
"The way the doors swing open is so natural.... Could you give me even a hint as to how you implemented that?"
"Every spawning zombie has a different shape. Did you actually sculpt each model individually?"
Real recognize real.
Developers from other studios playing the demo marveled aloud, and investors drooled over it. Even if this was nothing more than a vertical slice, anyone who couldn't recognize our game's potential had no business working in this industry.
"Heh heh."
It felt like all the months of grueling work were finally being rewarded.
This was exactly the reaction I'd wanted.
Ah, yes. Praise me more.
Making a game is a profoundly lonely battle. I hadn't built Dot Hero alone the way I had back in the day; I'd built this one with my employees, so calling it lonely might sound strange.
But the development team is one body. Even if the QA team gives you feedback throughout development, at the end of the day they're company employees — charity begins at home. If something seems a little ambiguous, they'll call it fun; even when something genuinely isn't fun, they'll find some way to inflate its merits. That's why developers are forever haunted by the same gnawing doubt: is our game actually fun?
I was no different.
I believed it would be fun, of course, but there was always a small corner of my mind whispering, will it land?
Turns out, it really was fun.
All I had to do was look at the faces of the people playing the demo.
The expression of a fellow developer hitting an invisible wall.
The expression of someone who'd set business aside and was purely enjoying a game.
The expression of someone greedily picking the game apart, desperate to learn something from it.
Those nonverbal cues lifted my mood even higher — words can be dressed up, but those faces were utterly unguarded.
I'd been watching the perimeter of the booth for quite a while when Kim Seung-wook, who was running it, started glancing around anxiously. Then he spotted me and beckoned.
"The vultures have arrived."
Before the event opened, I'd given Seung-wook instructions: I had no interest in tech partnerships or investment inquiries, so politely turn them all away — and only call me over if exactly two kinds of companies made contact.
There were only two reasons Kim Seung-wook would call me over.
Either Sonia, the company behind FlagStation, or Nanosoft Gaming, the company behind Z-Box, had approached the booth.
Is it that guy?
He was the one who'd stood out earlier, repeatedly gasping in admiration as he played the demo.
When I made my way slowly toward the booth, Kim Seung-wook introduced me to the middle-aged man.
"This is Cho Yihan, the CEO of our PlayForge."
"I'm Cho Yihan, Executive Director of PlayForge."
The middle-aged man looked me over once, then let out an admiring breath.
"I had no idea the CEO and Director would be someone so young! I am Sato Daisuke, head of the Third-Party Publisher Management Division at Sonia Interactive Entertainment."
There was no sense that he was dismissing me for my age. On the contrary, there was genuine awe in his eyes, and I smiled calmly in return.
"Director Sato, was it? A pleasure. Though I have to wonder — what brings you here?"
I knew perfectly well why an official from the department that manages FlagStation's third-party publishers would make contact, but I played coy on purpose.
"Ah! I played the demo of No-Hope and simply had to know what kind of people made a game like this, so I asked your staff here to let me meet the development team. I never expected the Director himself to receive me like this. I must be lucky today! Hahaha!"
No-Hope.
That was the official title of the game we'd only ever referred to as Project Zombie.
"How was the game?"
"Magnificent. If the demo hadn't been time-limited, I could have happily sat there for hours."
Praise upon praise. And Director Sato, as if even that weren't enough, continued to sing No-Hope's praises.
"The buttery-smooth framerate, the depth of the object interactions. And when I looked closely, I noticed that every single zombie had a different face."
"Just as no two people in the world look exactly alike, no two zombies in a game should either. It's a trivial detail, really — but it's the kind of thing that can shatter a player's immersion, so we paid close attention to it."
"As expected.... Craft is what makes a masterpiece, after all. This Sato was genuinely impressed. However...."
Director Sato's expression shifted, suddenly clouded with worry, as he asked,
"Let me ask you honestly. This level of graphics, this framerate, this interactivity — will it hold up across the entire map?"
It was phrased delicately, but the question underneath was plain: isn't this just a scam — a demo you poured your entire soul into polishing, purely to reel in investment?
It could have been a deeply offensive question.
Asking someone to their face, you're not running a con, are you?
But considering that our PlayForge was a studio not even two years old, it wasn't a question anyone could fault him for asking. And there was another reason it didn't feel rude: the look on Director Sato's face. He seemed to be pleading, desperately, please tell me it isn't so.
As if a con artist would ever announce that he's a con artist.
Apparently our game had impressed this corporate department head enough to strip away his poker face.
"I understand your concern, Director Sato. You're worried we might be... pulling a fast one, so to speak."
"No, no! I've never even heard your studio's name before, so I suppose I misspoke out of caution. Please don't take offense...."
"Well, I can see how you might not have heard of us. We've released one mobile game and one PC game through Storm, but we're a Korean studio, not a Japanese one, so it's plausible enough."
"You say you have previous titles?"
"Dot Hero and ACD.... Do those ring a bell?"
"Ah! I believe I have heard of them! So those games were yours!"
Watching him finally put the pieces together left me a little bitter.
They sold decently well in Japan too, you know....
And all he'd managed was "heard of them."
Not just Dot Hero — ACD had sold in large numbers as well. Yet the name of the game only vaguely rang a bell, and the name of the company seemed to be entirely new to him. That stung.
Our PlayForge wasn't a global household name yet. Ordinary users could be forgiven for not knowing us, but someone working in the games industry should have known — and that expectation had clearly been too generous.
When my expression soured, Director Sato hastily backpedaled.
"My apologies. The fault lies with me for not doing my homework. I rushed over here right after playing the No-Hope demo...."
"No, it's fine. That just means we need to work harder."
I set the bitterness aside and returned to his earlier question.
"As for whether it's feasible.... Yes, it is. The truth is, the demo only restricts access to certain areas for the game show's sake — what we've actually built is considerably larger."
"Oh.... Then what percentage of completion, roughly...?"
"Somewhere around thirty-five percent. We're targeting the end of next year as our deadline. That could shift depending on circumstances, of course."
"The end of next year! And what would you estimate the recommended specifications to be?"
"Hm.... Well, it being the kind of game it is, they won't exactly be modest. Somewhere around here, I'd say?"
I pulled a laptop out of my bag and showed him the projected specs, and Director Sato's eyes lit up.
"Oh my...!"
Anyone else, I might have wondered what was so astonishing — but looking at it through a regressor's eyes, I could deduce exactly why Director Sato was so startled.
The specs of the next-generation FlagStation 4 line up almost perfectly with its release window, don't they?
It was still a console shrouded in secrecy. There hadn't even been an announcement that it would launch, and the project was being handled in the strictest confidence even within Sonia — there was no way I could know any of that. So to Director Sato, it must have felt like something close to fate.
The privilege of a regressor, but still.
This was precisely one of the reasons I'd chosen console for our next release. To launch our game alongside the next-generation console's release date and become its launch and killer title. That was PlayForge's core objective this time.
From a pure revenue standpoint, it might be a rather foolish move. A newly launched console has a low install base compared to its predecessor, so sales wouldn't come close to expectations.
If I were chasing money alone, the optimal play would be to downgrade it to FlagStation 3 specs and release now, then put out a remaster once the next-gen install base grew.
But I'd chosen to sacrifice a slice of revenue and ride the wave of buzz instead.
The PC version can cover the shortfall in revenue anyway.
Once the console exclusivity window ended, we'd sell it on PC and make back whatever we lost.
What mattered was recognition.
I wanted to burn the association into console players' minds: a game made by PlayForge is a masterpiece.
"Director Cho Yihan. Might we arrange a formal conversation with our side of Sonia this afternoon? I have a great deal I want to ask, and a great deal I want you to hear. This afternoon, our Vice President will be at the venue himself, so we could discuss things in far more detail—"
"One moment."
"...?"
Just as he was moving to set up an appointment, a foreigner abruptly cut in.
"If Sonia's taking the afternoon slot, we'd like to talk right now."
I'd strictly warned Seung-wook to turn away peddlers and penny-chasers, so having some unidentified stranger barge in while I was speaking with Sonia rubbed me the wrong way.
"And who might you be?"
"Ah! Haven't introduced myself, have I? I'm the sort of person you'd find on this."
He handed me a business card, and I took it for a look.
No wonder the card had struck me as gaudy and extravagant. He was a Vice President at Z-Box.
"Cho Yihan, Director of PlayForge, was it? We at Z-Box would like to sit down and have a proper, unhurried conversation with you. Do you have the time?"
I nodded at his confident expression.
"D-Director Cho Yihan? Our Sonia was promised the first meeting—"
"Don't be greedy, Director Sato. You're meeting in the afternoon, aren't you? Wait your turn. Then again... come this afternoon, your chance may not come at all. Hahaha!"
Director Sato glared at him like a man watching his lover get stolen away, but there was nothing I could do about it. When a publisher VP-level executive offers a meeting in person, there's no reason to refuse.
"Director Sato. I'll see you this afternoon, then."
"Ah...."
His face crumpled.
"Vice President! Right now! You must come to the venue immediately!"
Yamamoto Kenichi frowned at the phone call that had come out of nowhere from his subordinate.
"What on earth are you saying? Speak so a man can understand you — telling me out of nowhere to come to the venue! Do you take me for someone who goes wherever you say—"
"Nanosoft is trying to steal our game!"
"What?"
Steal a game?
The cryptic remark left him flustered, but the moment the word "steal" reached his ears, the sharp mind that had carried him to the vice presidency of a global corporation began spinning through every possible scenario.
"Don't tell me — are you saying Remnants of Earth, our flagship title for FlagStation, has breached its contract and jumped to Z-Box? That's impossible! Do you have any idea how steep the penalty would be? Or has Z-Box agreed to pay their investment and the breach penalty on their behalf?!"
"No, sir! It's nothing like that!"
"Then GTM 5? That one was never an exclusive in the first place. Don't tell me they're skipping FlagStation entirely and launching exclusively on Z-Box? That cannot happen! The penalty would be enormous — why would they even consider breaching?!"
"No, sir! It's nothing like that either!"
Not this, not that. Yamamoto finally snapped at the phone.
"Then what in blazes do you mean, they're stealing a game?!"
Sato, who under normal circumstances would have been trembling at the bellow of his voice, shouted urgently back through the receiver.
"You'll understand when you come to the venue!"
"....Director Sato. Don't tell me you're making this fuss over some game on display at the expo?"
"I am, sir! There is a game we absolutely must sign...!"
"Hoo.... You will answer for what you're saying right now. If this turns out to be nothing... you will regret today."
"Understood, sir! There isn't a moment to lose. We have to sign No-Hope before those Z-Box vultures snatch it away. If you come see it yourself and it turns out to be nothing, you're welcome to take my head!"
"Hmm...."
The sheer ferocity of Director Sato — a man who sounded ready to commit seppuku if his eye for games had failed — made Yamamoto take a second look at him.
And here I thought he was a timid, milquetoast sort of man. So he had this samurai side to him.
When a man — the head of a household — stakes his job on words like these, a schedule is worth rearranging. He hung up the phone and summoned his secretary over the intercom.
"Cancel my morning appointments. And everyone who was supposed to accompany me to the game show today — have them prepare to leave for the venue this instant."
"This... very moment, sir?"
"Don't make me say it twice."
"Yes, sir...!"
Arriving at the venue with his staff in tow, Vice President Yamamoto spotted Director Sato waiting for him anxiously in the distance.
"Vice President! You came!"
"Spare me the greetings. This game you staked your neck on — let me see it first. Then we'll talk."
"Yes, sir! Right this way!"
Following Director Sato, Yamamoto reached the PlayForge booth and watched the gameplay footage playing on the giant screen for a short while.
Tap.
Then he placed a hand on Director Sato's shoulder.
"Is it true that this studio is in a meeting with Z-Box right now?"
"They left for the meeting two hours and thirteen minutes ago. I'm afraid things may already be going well for them...."
"Book the appointment. Now."
Director Sato understood exactly what those words meant.
Vice President Yamamoto, too, had recognized the worth of this game.
"Yes, sir! At once!"