Chapter 33. No Comparison, No Harm
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"Well then, thank you all for your support!" Kiyoshi Yuuma bowed deeply.
"No, no, it's us who should be thanking you," said Hattori Hiroyuki, standing up and shaking Kiyoshi Yuuma's hand firmly.
Kiyoshi Yuuma had reached an agreement with Hattori Hiroyuki—in the future, Golden Thumb Game Retail Chain would make an advance purchase of 1,000 copies of Prestigious Academy.
Because he had failed to secure the top spot last time, this time President Hattori was acting boldly.
Pokeni was now a company with a successful game under its belt, so Kiyoshi Yuuma's negotiations with distributors went very smoothly.
Even before its release, the game had already secured 5,000 preorders.
The scale of this game was small, with no need for extra chips, so Pokeni offered distributors a price of 3,000 yen per cartridge.
That meant—even though the game wasn't on the market yet—Pokeni had essentially already broken even.
The total development cost, including staff salaries and cartridge production, was just over 18 million yen, which was about what Kiyoshi Yuuma had originally expected.
…
That afternoon, after signing the contracts, Kiyoshi Yuuma returned to the company. As soon as he walked in, he saw Ayase Akane pushing a food cart with a 10-inch cake on top, covered in lit candles.
It wasn't anyone's birthday but was to celebrate the successful completion of Prestigious Academy's development and its 5,000 preorders, so the whole team was excited and overjoyed.
"President, please." HR Ayase Akane handed a cake knife to Kiyoshi Yuuma.
Kiyoshi Yuuma smiled slightly. This girl really was getting the hang of her secretary duties.
"Here's to a big hit!"
Kiyoshi Yuuma blew out the candles and made the first cut.
"Here's to a big hit!" everyone cheered.
…
Just a week before Prestigious Academy's release, Blue Winds officially released their new game, Street Pickup.
President Kobayashi Shigeru of Blue Winds had high hopes for the game.
After all, it was their first attempt at developing a cartridge-based game. If they failed here, it would greatly impact team morale.
Mizutani Takashi also admitted to feeling extremely anxious. If Pokeni's Onmyoji didn't exist, he'd be full of confidence in this game he developed. But now—things were uncertain.
Especially since the chief artist had barely followed his directions and insisted on their own ideas. After several revisions, the character designs and art style could only be described as barely acceptable.
As for the faces… let's just say they were hard to describe in words. From the start, their illustration quality had lagged behind Pokeni's, and now it all felt a bit jarring.
However, when it came to gameplay design and understanding of galgames, Mizutani believed he was not inferior to Kiyoshi Yuuma.
…
After Street Pickup hit the shelves, its sales could only be described as dismal. A week passed, and it had sold just over 1,200 copies. At this rate, final sales might only reach 3,000 copies or possibly even less.
This fell far short of Blue Winds' expectations.
Players who had tried the game gave it poor reviews:
[The character designs are too simplistic, like empty shells without souls. Talking to them gives you no sense of personality, so you can't feel any real charm.]
[The lack of challenge is also frustrating. In Onmyoji, winning a character's heart takes real effort. But Street Pickup is way too easy.]
[If the art had been good enough like Onmyoji's stunning visuals, then maybe even having all the girls be ultra-CUP-sized wouldn't matter. The problem is Street Pickup doesn't come close to Onmyoji in either quality or style.]
[What do you call this?]
[No comparison, no harm.]
[Once you've played Onmyoji, every other galgame in the world feels dull.]
[Still, I think we should thank Onmyoji. It showed us what a galgame should be and the heights it can reach.]
[I hope Blue Winds learns from Pokeni and puts real heart into future galgames. Show some perseverance and challenge Pokeni! Good luck!]
…
Damn it!
When Mizutani Takashi read the player surveys returned by colleagues, he was practically fuming.
Who told Pokeni to make Onmyoji so good? Now that it had raised players' expectations, they couldn't accept mediocre games like Street Pickup anymore.
What made him even angrier— the new company's president and staff hadn't fully followed his guidance in game development, yet now he, the chief planner, was the one forced to bear the consequences of their stubbornness.
Mizutani looked up and noticed that President Kobayashi also wore a grim expression from afar. He began to hesitate—should he resign before Kobayashi Shigeru fired him?
At the very least, he could retain a shred of fragile pride.
Just then, a colleague from the operations department came rushing in, panicked: "Bad news! Pokeni's new game is about to launch!"
"Huh? Seriously? That soon?!" Mizutani Takashi shot up from his chair.