Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 187 The Mad Japanese Moon Fan

"?! No, why did you buy so much?"

"Buy it as a gift"

"Giving it away?? To whom?"

Li Mingzhe was dumbfounded. What the hell? Can you even speak human language? Giving away game gift boxes??
"Who is it for? A client."

"Clients? I remember the clients you dealt with were all middle-aged men in their forties and fifties, right? They still do this kind of thing?"

"The customer's child."

Wang Lei replied.

"Sato, do you still remember him?"

"Of course, what's wrong with that old guy? He plays FGO too!?"

Yusuke Sato is one of their company's more important local distributors in Japan. He is in his forties, old-fashioned and strict, and one of the most difficult clients to work with in the company.

"Yes, it's him. His son, who's in high school, called me last night specifically to ask if I had any connections to get goods from China, and he was willing to pay for it."

Is FGO really that influential in Japan?

Li Mingzhe genuinely raised the question.

In his view, although it was Sato's son who was asking for the favor, the fact that Sato agreed to make the call meant that the other party at least acknowledged the "favor."
It's just a piece of game merchandise, is it really worth making a special phone call to ask for it?
No matter how you look at it, it seems a bit exaggerated.

He's definitely not going to hire a Japanese proxy buyer just for a game item.
"I'm puzzled too, but this gift box is quite popular in Japan."

"I heard that over 200,000 sets have already been pre-ordered online in Japan! Now you can only buy in-stock items through a lottery. I checked and it seems that the Chinese server doesn't require a lottery, so I agreed to it."

"No, I think the one I bought in the country is the Chinese version, right?"

"You don't know anything! Only the Chinese version is high-class. Okay, stop babbling. You've already transferred your money to me. The standard Japanese version sells for 8900 yen. I'll treat you to a shopping spree with the profits I make."

"A lottery? A more advanced form of Chinese?"

Li Mingzhe felt that his worldview had been slightly shaken.

"That's roughly the gist of it. Just check it out on Twitter. Search for 'FGO Commemorative Craft Essence' and see how our Japanese friends are doing right now. Remember to buy it for me after you see it..."

"alright."

Although he thought it was a bit of an exaggeration, Li Mingzhe still agreed.

Because of his work, he has a Japanese Twitter account and sometimes he would scrape data and screenshots of his comments to put in reports, so he is quite familiar with Japanese Twitter.

I skillfully switched nodes, logged into my account, and entered the keywords Wang Lei had given me into the search bar.

The moment the search results popped up, Li Mingzhe's eye twitched slightly.

On the screen, a dense stream of information refreshed like a waterfall.

Almost every post contained that keyword and was accompanied by various emoticons expressing grief, frustration, or envy.

[I failed to win the commemorative gift box again in the lottery... God, why? (つД`)ノ]

[This is outrageous! Pre-orders are already approaching 300,000! That's incredible!]

[The standard edition of the "Meisho-onna" (Japanese version of the item) is being resold by scalpers for 15,000 yen! Can't you guys just pre-order it?! You bastards!!] 15,000 yen is about 800 RMB.
That's doubled! Are you guys crazy?!

"This is too..."

He continued scrolling down and soon discovered that it wasn't just Japanese players who were having a blast; many Japanese celebrities were also among them, some of whom Li Mingzhe didn't actually recognize.

For example, this person named Shimazaki Nobunaga, but he can see the verified badge of the other party's account, as well as the exaggerated popularity of his Twitter account.

This person also posted a screenshot, showing the email notifying him that he was not selected in the lottery, and a private message from someone named Nakamura Yuichi saying "I won!" with the caption:

[The person who won the draw, please don't talk to me!!]

The number of comments under this tweet was also ridiculously high.

"Nobunaga-san also failed to be elected!?"

"Haha, when it comes to selection, everyone is equal!"

"It's okay! If all else fails, just join the pre-order group like me! It's just a few months' wait! o(╥﹏╥)o"

Looking at these comments, Li Mingzhe felt a little numb. Wait, is this game really that popular in Japan? It doesn't seem to have this kind of fanfare in China.

In fact, the reason why this gift set became so popular in Japan before the release of the FGO remake was something that even Starry Sky Games did not expect.

However, its sudden popularity was not entirely without precedent.

On the one hand, this FGO gift set is "cheap". Yes, even though the Japanese standard edition is priced at "8900 yen", which is equivalent to 530 RMB according to the 16 exchange rate.

It's almost twice as expensive as the Chinese version.

But you should know what the normal price range for anime merchandise is in Japan.

A simple acrylic standee can cost over 1,000 yen, while a reproduction of the original artwork can easily cost several thousand yen. Fate/Zero previously released similar class-specific chess pieces, which started at 10,000 yen.
Not to mention, this gift box also includes a skin selection pack!! At that time, a single skin in the Japanese game was priced at around two to three thousand yen...
Therefore, from the perspective of Japanese players, this gift box, which costs nearly 10,000 yen, is truly a "friendship opportunity," and buying it is a great deal!
Besides, although the Japanese anime and manga merchandise market is very mature, most of the products are the same old ones.

Acrylic signs, badges, posters, cushions.

A bunch of Japanese peripheral manufacturers are only thinking about how to fleece consumers, and have never thought about properly refining their products.

These so-called peripherals are utterly inferior compared to the gift boxes launched by Starry Sky Games. Laser tickets, star sand notes, and other peripherals that Chu Chen has already proven successful in the Chinese market are all superior.

If they were to compete in the Japanese market, it would be a game-changer.

Why are Japanese anime and manga fans so enthusiastic about Chinese-made anime and manga games? Because Chinese-made anime and manga games genuinely offer a sense of novelty and excitement.

This time, the Starry Night gift box not only offers a fresh experience, but the contents also give the impression of being "thoughtful".

The "shopping" desire generated by this feeling is no less than that of the surrounding products themselves.

Japanese anime fans haven't experienced this level of dedication to merchandise from manufacturers in a long time.

To an ordinary person, each of these items might just be a notebook, a piece of paper, a piece of plastic, or a few lumps of gold-plated iron.
But for FATE fans, each of these things has considerable emotional value.

In addition, there is the existing fan base of FATE in Japan.

Selling out completely is a high-probability event, while not selling out completely is a low-probability event. Even many Fate fans who don't play FGO have joined this frenzy.

This was originally just a "side hustle" in Starry Night Games' marketing campaign, but it has managed to make a splash in the Japanese market, giving the impression of being a major force.

(End of this chapter)