Tokyo: Being coveted by my wife, I just want to play games

Chapter 408 Reactions from all parties!

To be honest, Dongchuan Che is very famous now, and he has basically never failed since his debut.

Therefore, before the launch of World of Warcraft, although many people were pessimistic about Toru Fuyukawa's decision to cross over to make online games, most of his peers, such as SATE's Executive Managing Director Kuriyama, still held the mentality of "watching the Fuyukawa miracle again."

"Dongchuan is so powerful that he doesn't even seem like a human."

Minato, SATE gaming division headquarters building.

The warm morning sun crept into the smoke-filled executive office through the huge French windows. The old man Kuriyama was smoking a cigar and exhaling a long puff of smoke. He was mumbling something in his mouth, but his eyes were on the report in his hand.

[At 11:35 last night, World of Warcraft reached its peak number of online users in the first week of its launch - 1782 million.]

[The publicity and promotion was a great success. In the first week of World of Warcraft's launch, the global search volume exceeded 2198 million, and there were more than related hot words. ]

[Marketing Department Analysis Report Summary: The content and gameplay far exceeded expectations, and the character image creation is as strong as ever. According to the current popularity and public opinion trend, if the first subsequent group expansion does not have a big plot and gameplay bomb, "World of Warcraft" will become the second phenomenal IP of the Holy Light Society after "FGO". ]

【Thanks to the popularity of four consecutive expansion packs of FGO, the rapid development of the GOGO platform, and the phenomenal launch of World of Warcraft, the valuation of the gaming sector alone is expected to be close to 30 billion US dollars in the second half of this year. If the second half of this year, the company will continue to increase its investment in music and film and television sectors, the overall valuation of the company may reach 40 billion US dollars at the beginning of next year.】

[Note: To prevent data distortion, the above prediction does not include the handheld game "Pokemon" and GO! handheld game that will be released by Shengguangsha in three months. ]

Estimated market value: 400 billion US dollars!
Looking at the data analysis report provided by professionals, Executive Managing Director Kuriyama sighed and took a puff of his cigar.

He didn't doubt the authenticity of this report at all. After all, the game industry was like this. Among 10,000 people who created games, only 10 of them could make a living. The rest of the producers were just doing it for love, but as long as they could make a hit, the wealth they would reap would be terrifyingly high.

In its previous life, miHoYo relied on a few IPs such as Honkai Impact 1600rd and Genshin Impact to increase the company's market value to billion RMB, or more than billion USD.
Blizzard's market value is close to 60 billion US dollars, but its only IPs that make big money are "Call of Duty", "World of Warcraft", "Hearthstone", "Overwatch" and "Diablo".

Che Dongchuan now has the super-enhanced versions of "FGO" and "World of Warcraft". Although he is certainly not as good as Blizzard, which owns games like "Call of Duty", Che Dongchuan is not just the president of a game company. The development of Holy Light Society in music, film and television and other sectors is still very good.

not to mention.
"Pokemon" and the Holy Light Society's [GO! Handheld] are also going to be released!

As long as the "Pokemon" that has been super-enhanced by Fuyukawa Tetsu reaches the influence of the previous "Pokemon"; as long as [GO! Handheld] takes up a part of the handheld market with its super high cost performance, the market value of the Holy Light Society will inevitably soar!
“Hundreds of billions of dollars?”

"It's only been four years. What an amazing young man."

Managing Director Kuriyama put the report aside and took another puff of his cigar with emotion. He had been in the business world for more than 50 years and had seen many young talents. He had even killed many so-called "young genius challengers" because of business struggles. But it was the first time he had seen a monster like Fuyukawa Tetsu who had conquered such a large territory in just four years.
It also affected his business layout.

“There is no chance of annexation.”

"For at least the next ten years, we at SATE will have no chance to enter the PC platform."

Thinking of this, Executive Manager Kuriyama rubbed his brow uncomfortably, holding the cigar between his fingers.

Although his relationship with Dongchuan Che seemed to be very good over the years, and they often ate and chatted together, and they even visited each other during the Chinese New Year this year, who among those who could climb to this position was not a ruthless person?
Business competition is not a place to talk about loyalty and feelings.

Although he admired Dongchuan Che, a talented, experienced and decisive junior, a person who could not distinguish between personal relationships and career would not be able to climb to this position and would have been eliminated by more ruthless people long ago.

Therefore, if there are any problems with SATE's offline channels, Dongchuan Che will definitely not cherish the old friendship and will definitely take action to grab the market.

In fact, Executive Managing Director Kuriyama has been thinking about the PC online channel of Seikosha - [GOGO platform] for many years.

He has been waiting for an opportunity when Toru Fuyukawa is weak. As long as any of Toru Fuyukawa's works fails and causes problems with the funding chain of Holy Light Society, he will definitely take advantage of the situation. On the one hand, he will use SATE's influence to lead the manufacturers he knows to put pressure on Toru Fuyukawa, and on the other hand, he will try his best to let SATE take control of Holy Light Society.

Nothing can be done.

Although Dongchuan Che is not in urgent need of offline sales channels, now that he is rich, it is naturally safer for his company to expand offline channels.

However, the offline channels in Japan are now controlled by SATE and Kondo Ryūmū. Offline physical chain stores actually do not have much technical content. Unlike games, you can grab the market by making a more interesting game. For offline physical chain stores, as long as there is enough capital, it doesn’t matter who runs it. Users generally prefer to go to those old stores.

It is difficult for Dongchuan Che to force his way into offline channels, so he has not taken any action yet.

The same goes for SATE.

Although SATE's main business is game consoles, if they were to develop PC game platforms, they would be competing with themselves for jobs. In addition, they did not enter the PC field. In addition to the fact that they are in the console business, SATE once tried to enter the PC channel, but failed like OTTO and lost a lot of money.

Taking all the above factors into consideration, SATE is unlikely to actively enter the PC field now, but if there is a chance to acquire large-scale control of the GOGO platform, a PC channel with great potential, they will definitely not miss it.

Fuyukawa Tetsu is watching some of SATE's business, and Kuriyama is also watching some of Fuyukawa Tetsu's business. But it is obvious that with the explosion of "FGO" and "World of Warcraft", Fuyukawa Tetsu has completely established his foothold.

Now Dongchuan Che has to take the initiative to get involved in the political whirlpool.

In other words, if he suddenly went crazy and borrowed billions of dollars to do business, and then failed, and lost all the loans, and "FGO" and "World of Warcraft" simultaneously released a super-rubbish expansion pack that caused more than half of the players to leave, otherwise, Fuyukawa Che would have already been in the ascendant. And this also means that Kuriyama and the SATE capital behind him have completely lost the opportunity to enter the Holy Light Society.

It's a pity, Kuriyama felt it was a pity, but he was not a hesitant person.

If plan A doesn't work, then we have to go with plan B.

Thinking of this, Executive Managing Director Kuriyama put out his cigar in the ashtray and looked up at the female secretary beside him, "Go contact President Fuyukawa and tell him that I'll have dinner with him at Tsurutakeken next week to discuss the launch of the game "Vanguard Batman" on the GOGO platform."

"Hayi, I'll contact you right away."

The female secretary nodded and bowed. She took out her phone to contact Miyano Mitsuko's secretary. At the same time, there was a little surprise in her eyes. "Vanguard Batman" is SATE's first-party exclusive masterpiece, and its popularity and reputation are very high. OTTO has talked to Executive Director Kuriyama many times, but has not succeeded in bringing this game to the OTTO platform. But this time, her leader, Executive Director Kuriyama, actually took the initiative to talk to Toru Fuyukawa about cooperation.

"It seems that the company is preparing to deepen its cooperation with the Holy Light Society."

The secretary kept thinking while she was on the phone. After she finished the call, she hesitated for a moment, put away her phone, turned to Executive Managing Director Kuriyama and said, "I have contacted Ms. Miyano's secretary. She said President Fuyukawa is in a meeting and will give me the exact information before tomorrow."

"Well, no rush."

"Ha Yi. Oh, by the way, Boss, I have one more thing to report to you."

"kindness?"

Managing Director Kuriyama was a little surprised.

The female secretary leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, "When I was reading the report yesterday, I found that in Gunma Prefecture, a girl named Sato Yuki joined the ROG team of our Gunfire game."

girl?

Team?

Hearing the female secretary's words, Executive Director Kuriyama raised his eyebrows slightly in confusion.

E-sports is now also a big sector in the gaming industry, and the two most popular games in the e-sports industry today are OTTO's most popular MOBA game "Sentinel Scourge" and the most popular shooting game "Gunfire" (GF), also produced by OTTO.

These two games can bring a large number of stable daily activities to the game platform every day, which is the foundation of the OTTO platform. They are also the two most popular games in the current e-sports industry. As the leader of the Japanese game industry, SATE naturally has some involvement in this area.

Whether it is "Sentinel Scourge" or "Gunfire", in the leagues of these two games, there are their SATE teams - ROG e-sports clubs. However, Japan's e-sports industry is relatively sluggish.

Or to be more precise, the reason why Japan's e-sports industry cannot develop is not because many people imagine that "Japanese people are very introverted" or "Japanese people don't like e-sports", but because Japan's e-sports industry has experienced a cold winter similar to China's official intervention in the "electronic game ban" era.

Before 2018, if a Japanese game developer paid for an e-sports competition, the prize money for the final champion would be regarded as a "prize prepared by the company for product promotion". According to Japan's "gift presentation law", the amount of this prize money cannot exceed 5000 yen, which is about yuan.

If the amount exceeds this figure, the company may be fined or warned, or even have its business suspended or even have its license revoked.
Under this regulation, Japan's e-sports industry cannot develop at all, but the e-sports industry is a big piece of fat, so how hard will those manufacturers who want to enter the e-sports industry fight?

Capcom, the maker of Street Fighter, usually moves its games overseas to avoid Japanese laws.
In order to promote the event, but unable to offer a higher prize, in 2016, the organizers of the World of Tanks tournament announced that the champion would receive the panties of a female lead in a popular color movie from a certain island country.
Take it off on the spot, the original flavor still has body temperature.

It's very exaggerated and even a little nonsensical, but it also shows how difficult it was for Japanese manufacturers of fighting games and competitive games during that period.

the reason is simple.

It is said that capitalists pursue profit, but in fact ordinary people do the same.

No one wants to enter a business where they can't make money.

The same is true.

In an e-sports competition, the maximum prize money for the final champion is only 6000 yuan. Who would choose this as a career?

Without enough bonuses or salaries as an inducement, there won't be enough talent flowing in. Without enough talent flowing in, it won't attract the audience's attention. Without a lot of attention, it's impossible to form a complete e-sports industry because there's no money to be made.

This applies to all walks of life.

Japan has also gone through such a period in this life, but now it has become formalized, and super companies like SATE have started to set up teams. However, Japan's e-sports industry has just started, which has led to many big investors waiting and watching, and also to a lack of talent. These two reasons have led to the current small scale of Japan's e-sports industry.

For this reason, generally speaking, SATE's team business is only reported by relevant personnel at the mid-year and year-end conferences, and is not usually taken seriously by the company.

"Why did Secretary Xiaosaki suddenly bring up this matter with me today?"

Sniffing the sweet perfume on the female secretary, Executive Manager Kuriyama looked puzzled. In his puzzled look, the female secretary smiled and said, "Executive Manager, you should know that Ms. Sato has a sister, right? The Sato Yuki who joined our ROG team this time, I checked and found that she is Ms. Sato's sister, Sato Sayuri."

"Eh? Sato's sister?"

"You mean that little girl?"

Executive Manager Kuriyama’s eyes suddenly widened.

Sato Fujiko was once the marketing director of SATE. As SATE's executive director, he naturally knew Sato Fujiko's family background very well.

However, Fujiko Sato was once the executive director of SATE, a direct descendant of Ms. Inuzuka's faction, and he and Ms. Inuzuka were competitors. It was even him who got Ms. Inuzuka expelled from SATE. And later, he was also planning to transfer Fujiko Sato to the overseas branch to train his own people in the marketing department.

That is why, despite the close cooperation between SATE and Shengguang Society, Sato Fujiko actually has hatred towards SATE and his managing director Kuriyama. Although he does not say that he has hatred towards SATE, he is more or less holding a grudge in his heart and always wants to suppress SATE.

Of course, if it was just Sato Fujiko, then Kuriyama wouldn't need to worry too much. After all, although Sato Fujiko has shares in Shengguangshe, SATE's market value exceeds 150 billion US dollars, and Kuriyama, as the de facto executive director of SATE, is not inferior to Sato Fujiko at all. But the problem is.
Now, everyone in Japan who is a little bit prominent understands the relationship between Sato Fujiko and Fuyukawa Tetsu, and everyone also understands that Fuyukawa Tetsu is very protective of his people.

It was the kind of tricks that Dongchuan Che played on him, Dongchuan Che would not necessarily be really angry or hateful, and now as the scale of the Holy Light Society is getting bigger and bigger, Dongchuan Che's work style is not as extreme and strong as in the past two years. When he eats meat, he is more or less willing to give others some soup, and not to completely cut off others' livelihood. But if he offended the group of [Dongchuan family women] in the Holy Light Society, Dongchuan Che would really go crazy and fight to the end.

And this is actually why when the Holy Light Society and SATE are discussing cooperation, it is basically Kuriyama who is in charge.

Even though SATE is now working closely with the Holy Light Society, with his status and position, he only needs to be there in person for some key matters. But there is no other way, just like when Dongchuan Che comes to SATE now, he or even the president of SATE must meet him in person. In reality, those people under him, let alone the ministers, even the executives, are not qualified to meet Dongchuan Che when they go to the Holy Light Society.

The people below cannot see Toru Fuyukawa, and can only see Miyano Mitsuko and Sato Fujiko. However, Sato Fujiko can't stand his people from Kuriyama, so now when they are discussing cooperation with the Seikan Society, no matter big or small, he needs to take action personally.

Very troublesome.

But it is only one aspect that is troublesome. The more important thing is
This is actually a big bomb.

Although Holy Light Society has certain cooperation needs with SATE, as Holy Light Society's business grows bigger and bigger, more and more games are released, and the console platform has become increasingly sluggish in the past two years, Dongchuan Che is no longer as dependent on SATE's game library as he was when the GOGO platform was first released, so he needs their console channels to sell games.

On the contrary, if they cannot maintain a good relationship with the Holy Light Society, SATE will not be able to obtain a low-commission contract.

This is the charm of the PC channel.

If Dongchuan Che did not develop PC channels, then even if he made the market value of Shengguangshe reach 200 billion US dollars, SATE would not have to rely on him at all. Because no matter how much money Shengguangshe made without a game platform, it would have nothing to do with SATE, and it would even squeeze SATE's market share. But now it is different.

With the explosive popularity of "World of Warcraft", it is only a matter of time before the popularity and traffic of the GOGO platform reach a new level.

Now SATE has interests in the Holy Light Society, and that is why Kuriyama has been trying to ease the personal conflict between SATE and Sato Fujiko. However, although Sato Fujiko is a cute little cat in front of Fuyukawa Tetsu, her personality is extreme and sharp when dealing with outsiders, like a black rose with thorns.

Since last year, he has been asking his wife to find ways to get close to Sato Fujiko, but every time she failed. Including the Chinese New Year some time ago, although Sato Fujiko went to his Kuriyama home with Fuyukawa Tetsu to pay New Year's greetings, during the whole process, although Sato Fujiko didn't make a face, she didn't say anything either. She was just doing her job like "You come to my house to pay New Year's greetings, I will accompany my husband to return the gift."

Very difficult to approach.

Sato Fujiko is the type of person who is difficult to approach, and Kuriyama has been having a headache recently, but he never expected that someone would come and give him a pillow just when he was feeling sleepy!

Sato Fujiko's sister actually joined their SATE team!
The opportunity is coming!

A worry had a chance to be solved, and a slightly relaxed smile appeared on Executive Manager Kuriyama's face, but soon, he frowned again, "Why did that girl join our company's team? And she changed her name?"

The female secretary replied, "I did some background research. I heard from some people who are familiar with Sato Fujiko that her sister had entered a rebellious period, and at the end of last year, she asked Mr. Fuyukawa to send her to Gunma Prefecture to attend high school. It just so happened that our team held several campus competitions there during that time, and it seemed that her classmate signed up for the competition, but her classmate felt unwell after arriving at the competition site, so she took over, and unexpectedly she was selected."

"Sodus~Children of this age are really difficult to deal with."

Thinking of his own granddaughter who had just entered high school and was also very rebellious, Executive Manager Kuriyama had an idea in mind.

However, he did not directly say anything like "We will give Sayuri Sato a high-level treatment". People like him who have been in the business world for forty or fifty years are old foxes who know people's minds. He knows that kids of this age run away probably because of some second-year thinking like "I want to prove myself".

If you force too much attention on someone at this time, it will easily arouse the other person's rebellious psychology.

After thinking for a moment, Kuriyama lit up another cigar and said, "Let the team leader over there take good care of the little girl in secret, but don't let her be exposed. Also, if the little girl achieves any results in the team, report to me immediately."

"Hai."

"Okay, you go down first."

Watching the female secretary leave with the door, Executive Managing Director Kuriyama turned on his heels in his boss chair, smoking a cigar. At the same time, his mind flashed back to the time three years ago when he first met Toru Fuyukawa in the corridor of the SATE office building due to problems with the production of the Stardew Valley cassette. The man had a very strong and capable aura, but was still a bit childish and had no wealth.

Thinking of this, he looked at the flat screen on the boss's desk, the photo of Toru Fuyukawa who was interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun yesterday. Looking at the mature man in his thirties in the photo, the man who restrained his aura and became elegant and easy-going, Executive Manager Kuriyama also exhaled a long puff of smoke, then shook his head with a sigh.

"A senior executive of SATE is trying so hard to please a little girl."

"Well, it's just because that little girl has a good brother-in-law."
.
The impact of the explosion of World of Warcraft was huge, not only affecting the ecological structure of the entire gaming industry, but also affecting the attitudes of all companies that had business dealings with Shengguangshe. At the same time, the craze created by World of Warcraft also reached Gunma Prefecture and Sayuri Sato, who was a high school student in Gunma Prefecture.

(End of this chapter)