Tokyo: My obsession with China led me to become the king of Japanese entertainment.

P's sudden phone call not only brought Jun Sakurada a great opportunity to star in a film, but also served as a reminder to him.

His biggest source of cash, the gaming industry, hasn't received much attention lately; it seems it's time to give it a thorough review.

After sending Takizawa Rin and Chiki Ryo off to their respective tasks, Sakurada Jun thought for a moment and then made a phone call.

A few seconds later.

"Moshi moshi! Is this President Sakurada?"

"It's me, Koga-san. How's the studio doing lately?"

"Thanks to you, things are relatively stable right now." Xiao Gao chuckled on the other end of the phone.

"What about the development of 'Hundred Days of War'?"

"We have stabilized after receiving the investment, and we are very grateful for your help during our most difficult time."

"Not at all. I believe in Koga-san's abilities and future prospects."

That's right. Besides Hakimi's own games, as he gradually accumulated more spare cash, Jun Sakurada also began to invest in some game studios that he favored.

For example, Xiao Gao and Gang's t ky.

Xiao Gao and Gang are considered hidden gems in the gaming world.

He entered the industry in 02 and rose to fame with the legendary Danganronpa series, becoming one of the top mystery creators.

However, due to the parent company's control over the producer and creative autonomy, he chose to leave in 18, abandoning the legendary producer Danganronpa, and started his own business.

After seven long years of struggle, most of the time life was not very pleasant, until the release of the new work "Hundred Days War Chronicle" in 2025, which finally turned the tide.

In order to ensure the smooth launch of "100 Days of War", he not only took on a lot of outsourcing work, but also incurred a huge amount of debt.

To boost sales of this work, which can be considered his backup hidden energy source, he not only opened a social media account in China, but also tirelessly promoted Hundred Days of War.

The famous meme "Who are you? Please support 100 Days War" originated from this.

Overall, he's a wonderful person and a promising individual.

Jun Sakurada had long been eyeing Kazutaka Kodaka and his studio. Studios with core problems like lack of money and autonomy were precisely the easiest for Jun Sakurada to deal with.

In particular, he has accumulated enough reputation as an "angel investor" in the past two years, although it is more in the entertainment industry.

But Xiao Gao and Gang themselves have a wide range of businesses, doing a little bit of everything, so naturally they've heard of them.

Around 2020 was almost the most embarrassing time for Koga and T-KY Studio. Sakurada Jun seized this opportunity and prepared to add the prefix "Hakimi" to the studio's nameplate.

But... things didn't go smoothly at first.

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In the latter half of 20, Kazutaka Kodaka didn't release any games, but he did produce an anime based on the original concept.

When Jun Sakurada approached Kazutaka Kodaka, the film had just experienced an epic opening.

This led to a significant increase in Xiao Gao and Gang's confidence and bargaining power, making them naturally more eager to wait until the work finished airing so they could have more room for negotiation.

Although he was grateful to Jun Sakurada for his righteous act of investing in him without seizing power when he was in dire straits, who wouldn't want to earn more money if they could make a profit?

But when he apologized to Jun Sakurada, he didn't know that Jun Sakurada himself was secretly laughing.

He looked forward to the day when that anime would finish airing even more than Kazutaka Koga.

Because that epic, high-profile film... was called Akudama, a terrible movie that went down in history.

Is it a strong start? Yes, it's a very strong start. The first few episodes have a lot of great setups, the performances are cool, the characters are good, and the anticipation is high.

But... after the initial surge, came an epic decline, and then a further decline.

In stark contrast to the declining plot is the ever-increasing ambition of Xiao Gao and Gang, and of Lao Feng.

The character designs deteriorated in the later stages, the plot was a mess with a bunch of foreshadowing elements that weren't resolved, and the logic was completely unwatchable...

Although it's said that the screenwriter changed Kazutaka Kodaka's original story, well... what can we do when everyone only knows Kazutaka Kodaka?

You, Xiao Gao and Gang, want to rely on this historically terrible movie to return to Earth and avoid being released?

Are you kidding me!

Sure enough, two months later, Jun Sakurada, with a half-smile, met with an increasingly disheveled Kazutaka Kodaka in the same conference room.

The arrival of the evil jade at the center of the earth completely shattered Xiao Gao and Gang's last sense of security, and pushed his studio to the brink of life and death.

When he met Sakurada Jun, he was already prepared to be heavily pressured by Sakurada Jun to lower his price.

And... the price they offered was actually acceptable?

Jun Sakurada was, after all, a kind person and had no interest in taking advantage of others in distress.

The main concern is saving face. Since we've already determined that we can get a good deal, there's no need to create a rift between us and Xiao Gao just to save a little money.

He was counting on this guy to make a fortune by creating "Hundred Days of War".

In particular, Kazutaka Koga is also a producer who can make a lot of money in the Chinese market and has achieved great success in the Chinese market.

According to statistics, about half of the sales of "Hundred Days War Chronicles" were contributed by Chinese fans.

Given this, and assuming the returns are relatively stable, giving more is reasonable.

And so, at the end of 2020, Xiao Gao and Gang did not receive the massive amount of outsourcing work they had hoped for, nor did they face the desperate gamble of being forced to take out loans.

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Instead, they secured an investment that significantly improved the studio's operations.

In addition, there was a godfather.

And he is definitely not the only studio and producer who is waiting to call Jun Sakurada his godfather.

Jun Sakurada's notebook is filled with records of many projects that were initially unsuccessful but ultimately proved themselves successful.

He wanted to prove that while he, Jun Sakurada, might be bad at everything, his vision was absolutely top-notch in history!

After chatting with Kazutaka for a few minutes and confirming that he was determined to fully push forward with the Hundred Days of War Chronicles instead of taking on a bunch of outsourced jobs out of necessity, Jun Sakurada was relieved.

Without those outsourcing jobs, Xiao Gao and Gang could probably release their 100-day battle record a few years earlier.

During this period, we should advise him to study the operation of the Chinese market more thoroughly.

After hanging up the phone with Kazutaka Kodaka, Jun Sakurada thought for a moment and then started a video call.

He plans to have a talk with the top executives at Hakimi's studio headquarters.

In 2020, Jun Sakurada had no game development plans.

The game "Hundred Demons" has just been released. Although its completion level is indeed high enough and there are not many bugs to fix, there is still some work to be done in terms of operation and maintenance.

Moreover, because the game sold really well and received a lot of positive feedback, in addition to the main game, Jun Sakurada also initiated a medium-sized project, which includes various new challenge modes, decks, and enhanced content such as Yokai cards.

The development of this 'l' also took a considerable amount of time.

Moreover, it is an undeniable fact that Jun Sakurada is indeed too busy.

No matter how energetic he is, with multiple jobs, he can't possibly find the time to start overseeing a game project from scratch.

In particular, his requirements for this project were even higher: it couldn't tarnish Hakimi's current reputation.

Under various circumstances, Jun Sakurada simply made a bold decision:

We'll start... no, I mean, we'll take a year off and then come back.

In 2020, and including the first half of 2021, while Jun Sakurada focused most of his energy on the two tokusatsu projects he was working on, and dealing with the mess at Johnny's Entertainment,

Hakimi Studios, on the other hand, has temporarily split into three groups through recruitment and investment.

One team was responsible for developing the game "Hundred Demons" and its daily operation and maintenance, while the other two teams each developed their own independent games as small groups.

Jun Sakurada does not directly participate in the development and design of these two games; he only provides some suggestions when the projects are initiated.

The rest can be considered as training for his employees who have achieved great success right from the start.

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If it succeeds, it will be due to Jun Sakurada's leadership and the Hakimi's winning culture.

If it can't be done... then Sakurada Jun is indeed a genius; his subordinates simply can't function without him.

Anyway, Jun Sakurada is still a winner... Just kidding.

The video call invitation was answered almost instantly. A refined-looking young man with glasses appeared on the screen, standing at attention and saying, "Boss!"

"Stop with the formalities. How's the development of Yakov going lately?" Jun Sakurada asked directly.

"We've been mainly refining the mechanism during this period..." The young man was clearly used to Jun Sakurada's extremely time-compressed communication style when he worked, and immediately began to introduce the mechanism.

Perhaps because it was the first time Hakimi was leading a team to develop the project without Jun Sakurada at the helm, neither of the two smaller teams within Hakimi opted for particularly aggressive development plans.

One team made an extremely conservative choice: to develop a sequel to Yokai Survivor.

The core idea is to add elements instead of subtracting elements, without disrupting the core paradigm of the Survivor's Game.

We will try our best to make a Survivor-like game with excellent overall quality and a decent scale.

Yes, these aren't cards like those from the original timeline's "Vampire Crawler".

During this period, they added many mechanics and ideas to the game. Although it was adding features, given the talent of the members and the oversight of Jun Sakurada,

This official sequel, at least for now, looks pretty decent.

Um... are you sure you're developing "Yokai Survivor 2" and not Potato Brothers?

Why does the sense of déjà vu get stronger the more I look at it?

Besides the team that's developing a sequel to ensure a minimum standard, the other team leader is this young man in front of us.

Chen Jianfeng, or rather, jff.

Look closely, this young man's name is JFF, and he was one of the earliest employees at Hakimi Studios.

In 2019, when Jun Sakurada first asked Hypergryph to help him build the framework of Hakimi Studio, he discovered the biggest surprise.

At the time, JFF had already created early versions of the side-scrolling shooter games "Reinitialization" and "Snake Armed" while pursuing his master's degree, and his core development interest lay in shooter games.

Jun Sakurada hadn't expected to be able to recruit him.

As a result, whether it was because Hakimi offered generous compensation or for some other reason, he was recruited quite smoothly.

As the project manager when Jun Sakurada was too busy, he made great contributions to the launch of "Hundred Demon Cards".

This year, when Jun Sakurada chose to temporarily delegate authority, allowing him and another key member to lead their own team and develop their own indie game,

I thought this guy would perfect those two "m"s he made when he was in school and make something like "Carbonated Crisis".

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But this Tarkov fanatic, as if he had been planning this all along, submitted a complete plan that very night, on the very day that Jun Sakurada announced the relinquishment of power.

The above is the top-down shooter Tarkov game from the original timeline that made this young man famous:

Escape from Duckkov.

A small-to-medium-sized game that sold three million copies shortly after its release, achieving instant fame.

To be honest, when Jun Sakurada received this proposal, he actually hesitated for a moment.

Escape from Duckkov is a great game, without a doubt.

But the core reason why Yakov was so popular in its previous life was because of those few domestic trendy products, especially the poor performance of a certain continent.

The shared prison time event of a certain porridge game almost perfectly coincided with the release of Yakov's game. The angry shield-bearers had just quit the game, looking around in bewilderment, when they suddenly discovered this little gadget they could play.

Once I went in, I found there were no horrible drop rates, no forced battles, and no escorts. Playing it in single-player mode was just so much fun.

What more can I say? Absolutely amazing!

Riding the wave of the national trend and the crackdown on lame and grotesque products, Yakov was able to achieve such terrifying sales in such a short period of time.

Therefore, in Jun Sakurada's opinion, he actually didn't want the Yakov project to start so early.

However, JFF was quite determined. Thinking that Sakurada Jun didn't think much of the project, he was even willing to make a pledge, preferring to cut some funding and personnel, in order to hope that Sakurada Jun would continue the project.

Seeing the resolute attitude of his meritorious subordinate, Sakurada Jun didn't say much.

Well, anyway, Yakovlev is a good game. Although its reputation declined somewhat in its previous life due to the subsequent M controversy, that was mainly due to the management's mismanagement and had little to do with the game itself.

In that case, it doesn't really matter if we don't benefit from the popularity of a certain porridge.

Furthermore, if Jun Sakurada remembers correctly, this game seems to be quite popular in Japan, and many Japanese streamers enjoy playing it.

With the support of Jun Sakurada and Hakimi's P in this version, if the timing is right, releasing a console version would likely result in better sales in Japan.

This can be seen as making up for the fact that Hakimi Studios did not pay much attention to sales in Japan.

It's funny, actually. Jun Sakurada, a Japanese man, is so focused on studying the Chinese market that his native Chinese employees are surprisingly good at adapting to the Japanese market.

In addition, Hakimi Studios really needs to start honing its skills in making shooting games.

Once Jun Sakurada finishes filming all his current projects, especially those two dramas, he'll have the energy to return to the gaming industry.

Given his ambition, this time it's highly likely that it won't be a small-scale operation.

Having exhausted his foresight in the gaming industry, he now needs a game of sufficient scale to serve as a representative work of his game development career and enhance Hakimi's reputation.

Therefore, the core team needs to be trained, the studio needs to be expanded, and if there are any studios or individuals with unlimited potential but facing difficulties, they should try to take advantage of any available opportunities.

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Making some small-scale games to accumulate development experience is obviously a very necessary step.

Listening to JFF's report on the development progress of Yakov, Jun Sakurada gradually gained a better understanding of the situation.

In its previous life, JFF spent about two years developing Yakov, but that was mainly because the development team for Yakov in its previous life was too small, with basically no people.

In this life, with the team significantly expanded, even though Jun Sakurada, based on the needs of his previous life's m and Hakimi's own, had JFF try to create a first-person perspective mode for Yakov,

It should take less than a year to get it done.

By then, Jun Sakurada will be free. He can do some simple maintenance and open the Creative Workshop, and then he can consider the next big project.

After reporting on the development progress, Jun Sakurada seemed to remember something and added, "Have you made any progress with the development team I asked you to keep an eye on, the one that's not doing so well right now?"

Now that the decision has been made to try to create a large-scale, even near-AAA, game, building the team is obviously of paramount importance.

Fortunately, due to the impact of the pandemic, there are actually quite a few small and medium-sized teams, both domestically and internationally, that are not doing well.

If they can absorb some key personnel from there, and combine them with Hakimi's own manpower, they can still build a decent team to produce large-scale games.

"Teams... I haven't heard of any that are quite capable but extremely short of funds and on the verge of disbanding." JFF thought for a moment and shook his head.

Just as Sakurada Jun nodded, preparing to end the conversation, he seemed to suddenly remember something and quickly added, "But recently, when I attended an online conference, I met a team that was rather short of money."

"They seem to be developing a medium-sized project, with a team of about 10 to 20 people. They probably have a few million left in their accounts, which should last for a while, but the development progress is average, and they still need a lot of investment."

"And how should I put it... their subject matter is quite interesting." He added at the end.

"The subject matter is interesting... Can it be more interesting than our duck search and withdrawal?" Jun Sakurada was a little curious, but didn't care much.

There are tons of creative game development teams in China, but only a handful can survive to the end.

To put it bluntly, as long as the theme isn't the same old martial arts and fantasy genre, and the game mode isn't the overused strategy RPG Survivor... or the Souls-like games that will be popping up everywhere in the future, then it can be considered creative.

"It's not that kind of creativity... it's the story background of their game." JFF suppressed a laugh.

"The game's creator probably referenced films like The Man in the High Castle and designed a rather interesting story background."

"It's about how Japan, during the bubble economy of the last century, didn't experience a collapse after the bubble burst; instead, it was colonized by the United States, and then a zombie crisis occurred in the United States against this backdrop."

"What impressed me most was something the producer said: 'When they started the project, they were working on it based on stereotypes...' the boss?"

JFF was excitedly talking when he suddenly noticed his boss's eyes light up on the screen.

When he introduced Yakov before, the boss didn't show that much interest.

"...You Chinese are really ruthless. We Japanese wouldn't even dare to dream of such a thing."

Realizing he had slightly lost his composure, Jun Sakurada quickly tried to make amends.

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"Who says it isn't? That's why I said this group is interesting. Boss, what do you think... are you interested in investing in this project?" JFF didn't seem to have any doubts.

"...Just hearing an introduction is too simple. If possible, I would like to talk to their producer, or rather, discuss it with them."

Although his tone was calm, Jun Sakurada's eyes shone brightly, clearly showing his immense interest in the project.

"If it really comes down to this... I might consider acquiring them and doing it myself!"

"Since they're making stereotypical Japanese films, why not let me, a true Japanese person, be the producer? Isn't that a bit too stereotypical?"

Sakurada Jun's answer startled JFF. He had thought that his boss would be interested in the project, but he didn't expect the interest to be so great.

This means they've practically made this project theirs for the taking.

He was absolutely right. Sakurada Jun was genuinely interested in this work, which he hadn't been able to actually play with in his previous life until he transmigrated, and he was determined to have it.

After all... if a Japanese person who is well-versed in Chinese could lead a group of Chinese people to create this game...

Even disregarding the game content, it is itself a massive performance art piece.

In its previous life, this game was able to whet the appetite of China and even the world for years with just a trailer that had mediocre gameplay and graphics. It really had some tricks up its sleeve when it came to creating hype.

Moreover, in terms of cultural core, this thing is most suitable for Jun Sakurada's special situation of having a Japanese body but a Chinese heart.

"Then... I'll talk to their manager another day?"

"No rush. We can't do too much official business during the pandemic, so the money is burning slowly. They're probably still working on the concept. Let's wait until next year." Jun Sakurada shook his head.

"I'll try my best to go back to China next year. I'll personally lead the team then, and we'll have a good talk with that company."

While wondering if it was a bit strange for the boss to use "returning to China" to describe coming to China, JFF quickly nodded and said, "I understand, boss."

"Get to work."

After hanging up the video call with JFF, Jun Sakurada couldn't help but start thinking about the Showa America Story project again.

Unlike all the games Jun Sakurada had made before, this was no longer a work that he could mindlessly copy from his previous life.

Just kidding, it wasn't even published in the previous life, how could it be copied?

Moreover, even if it existed, Jun Sakurada wouldn't be interested, since the Showa era American story from his previous life was visibly not very good.

If the project really falls into his hands, Jun Sakurada will most likely retain the core cultural background setting and the idea of ​​creating something fun, and then... try to develop a truly big project.

An open-world 3A might be a bit of an exaggeration, but at least it should be at a level that can sell for 200 on Tmall.

If successful, it could be the biggest performance art piece in the gaming industry in recent years.

Filled with such excitement, Jun Sakurada leisurely returned home after a long day of work, and then...

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I was blocked at the door by my senior.

"Jun, about when did I join the crew at the Seijin Studio?"

"The main story will probably be released around March, and the movie version, since you're one of the main characters, might be released in April?" Jun Sakurada replied casually.

"What's wrong? Why are you suddenly asking this?"

"It's nothing, it's just..." Minami Hamabe hesitated, as if she wanted to say something but then stopped herself.

"Just today, another Kamen Rider production crew came to me."

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Six thousand words in one! The game aspect was indeed difficult to write, as I hadn't provided much background information beforehand.

For the sake of my daily 10,000 views, could you please give me some monthly votes? My ranking has plummeted terribly!

begging!

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