Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

It seems that some video games really do require an element of luck; simply replicating a game from your past life doesn't guarantee instant success.

Meanwhile, some game companies that were taking a wait-and-see approach, as well as manufacturers developing game consoles, immediately went back to what they were doing after seeing this result.

It seems that this game was just an experiment by Yuxing Electronic Entertainment, but this experiment did not achieve good results.

Several game companies that had already started planning to make a similar game immediately abandoned their plans and instead focused on creating eye-catching games based on the reviews on YiNan Games website.

"President, we might have messed up this time. If you have to blame someone, blame us."

This time, the development of Pokémon was carried out by Zhuyouxing by drawing on experienced game developers from the second, third, and fourth game development teams, totaling more than fifty people. Fresh blood was then injected into these three game development teams to ensure their continued stable development of the game.

The team, which had over fifty experienced game developers, felt a significant responsibility when their first game failed to achieve the expected explosive sales.

For so long, Zhuyouxing has been generous to its employees, giving them sufficient compensation and allowing them to live a comfortable and easy life. However, the sales of the games they made did not meet expectations, which made them feel very ashamed.

So the leader of the development team personally came to Zhuyouxing's office to apologize for making such a bad game.

"No, this is not your fault. You have done a great job. In fact, this was all part of my plan."

The team leader was slightly taken aback: "Is this part of your plan, boss?"

"That's right, this is just a temporary sales slump. Give this game some time, and time will prove its true strengths. Next, you're going to continue developing new Pokémon games, following the schedule I specified beforehand without any changes, understand?"

Zhu Youxing's words might not truly put the group leader at ease, but at least they could alleviate his feelings of guilt.

Zhu Youxing urged him to go back to work. Once the game was finished, if there were no serious bugs that needed fixing, they shouldn't focus on the game's sales anymore, but should continue to develop new Pokémon games according to his instructions.

After the group leader left, Zhu Youxing fell into thought again.

Perhaps Pokémon really isn't quite adapted to this world.

However, this is only the sales figures for the first week, so it doesn't really prove anything.

When Dragon Quest was first released, it wasn't very popular.

Ultimately, it was the collaboration with the manga that made Dragon Quest popular.

Bamboo Star initially wanted to replicate the success of Dragon Quest and increase its popularity by leveraging the Pokémon anime that aired at the same time.

However, the effect doesn't seem to be particularly good.

By the way, I can go and ask TV Tokyo how the Pokémon ratings are.

Television ratings can also be used as a reference to some extent.

Also, try increasing the investment in promotion for about a month, and then see how things go.

If it really doesn't work, then it probably proves that Pokémon are slightly out of place in this world.

Perhaps it's because we've allowed video games to develop too quickly, making it harder for players to settle down and enjoy slower-paced simulation and companionship games, or perhaps there are other reasons as well.

However, as long as this generation of games can sell over 400,000 copies, it will break even, and Takeyusei will continue the series.

If sales don't meet expectations, Takeyusei will insist that the development team make a third or fourth generation. Even if it fails, they will try harder to see if it's due to cultural incompatibility or some other reason.

Chapter 165 Taking the Initiative

When faced with obstacles and difficulties, Zhu Youxing never wants to sit idly by and wait for things to develop, but rather to at least do something.

Unless he had anticipated that certain obstacles and difficulties would gradually improve through waiting.

He needs to find out the reason why Pokémon seems to be having trouble adapting to the new environment.

Pokémon has its own appeal, but the first generation of Pokémon did experience a period of decline, which was only brought back by some marketing strategies.

However, Zhuyouxing had already started various marketing efforts in advance, including planning for animation and releasing more advertisements ahead of time, but the results were not very good.

He decided to observe more closely.

"President Takeyu, Pokémon's ratings are fluctuating around 17%, which is above the cutoff line. Our TV station certainly won't cut it off easily because of this. However, if it achieves better results, I can be more responsible to our shareholders. Will your suggestion that anime and game collaborations can effectively increase the audience of both sides really work?"

On the phone, Kubo's direct subordinate in the production department was reporting the anime's viewership ratings to Takeyusei.

"We will get help, but only if it is made well enough."

Kubo's subordinate quickly assured him, "President Takeyu, you can rest assured. Our production department has already allocated dedicated personnel to produce this animation. Wasn't our previous collaboration on Dragon Quest very popular?"

Zhu Youxing replied, "I'm not worried about that, but there's no need to rush. You can wait patiently for now."

Zhu Youxing reassured the TV station production manager and then began to ponder what to do next.

Should we conduct some marketing activities in advance related to the hidden Pokémon Mew?

Bamboo Star is designed to let players discover the wonder of the game on their own.

But those kinds of things depend on chance.

There is no related news on the internet or any public media platforms now, and according to its own deliberate design at the time, the game has not yet been discovered by players.

Revealing the hidden information about the game might indeed stimulate some players' interest in collecting it, but Zhu Youxing thinks that while it might boost sales, the increase will definitely be small.

Zhu Youxing reviewed the sales data and online survey results again, hoping to find a breakthrough.

However, after searching for a long time, I still didn't find anything.

Zhu Youxing had no choice but to continue investing in promotional funds and then reassure the employees so they could focus on developing the next installment.

Previous successes seemed to have made the employees complacent, leading them to believe that their first-party games always sold well in their first week.

But this time, the results were significantly lower than expected, and they seemed a little demoralized.

However, Zhuyouxing remained calm throughout and did not react much to the lower-than-expected sales figures.

Poor game sales are actually the most common problem.

In the film industry, a major film company often relies on a few blockbuster films to recoup its investment and then use that money to cover the losses of a few other films and television series.

There is no clear conclusion among many film companies about what kind of movies will be successful; it all comes down to practice, and audiences are notoriously difficult to please.

Gamers are the same; they are not easily appeased. Unless you create a high-quality game, they will be hard to buy.

Games that can make money tend to attract people in later generations who only have fragmented time. Today's children don't have much of that kind of spending power; they value the replayability and fun of games more.

The success of Pokémon in the previous life had a certain element of chance. If you rely entirely on that chance, you'll be too passive. You have to take the initiative to solve the problems and make use of all the successful marketing experiences from the previous life.

Zhu Youxing took out paper and pen and began to recall the successful advertising methods from his previous life.

“Live streamer promotion? This is a no-go. The internet is still relatively new, and live streaming speeds can't keep up. We should wait at least another ten years.”

"Product licensing collaboration? That sounds promising, I'll write it down in my notebook."

"Game community operation, creating an excellent community discussion ecosystem, increasing player stickiness, hmm, that seems like a good option, but not many kids go online, so I'll keep that as an alternative."

“Select lucky ones from among the children, make them opinion leaders, make them the first children to have a sufficient number of Pokémon, make them the most popular children, and then expand their influence from there.”

……

Zhu Youxing wrote down each idea one by one, occasionally marking some of them with an asterisk, preparing to implement them next, while others were temporarily set aside.

Some promotional and marketing methods are not currently useful, but that doesn't mean they won't be needed in the future.

For example, it can be used for the promotion and marketing of live streamers, which will definitely be useful when the live streaming industry becomes more popular.

After roughly writing out a long promotional plan, Takeyusei called Natsume Yasutaka in.

"President, you wanted to see me."

Natsume Yasutaka has been quite busy lately, mainly because of Pokémon marketing.

However, the response was not particularly enthusiastic, which he found slightly regrettable. Despite having made considerable efforts, there were no good results, and he was quite troubled by this.

Takeyusei nodded, then handed over the plan he had written and said, "Take a look at this. If you think it's okay, then arrange it according to this. If you need money, just let me know. I can afford to set aside another 1 billion or 2 billion yen for advertising."

Bamboo Games is now considered to be very wealthy. Selling 400,000 to 500,000 copies of a game can generate at least 1 to 2 billion in profit. This doesn't even include the revenue share they receive from third-party developers, which is gradually surpassing the money they earn from developing their own games.

Natsume Yasutaka took the plan with a puzzled look. It was filled with all sorts of promotional and marketing methods and details. Basically, you just had to follow the plan and you didn't have to think too much.

"Oh right, I forgot one."

At this moment, Zhu Youxing heard something again and quickly picked up his pen to start writing on a piece of white paper.

Meanwhile, Natsume Yasutaka patiently looked at all the contents of the schedule, becoming increasingly alarmed with each reading.

This marketing campaign is quite costly, but if implemented exactly as described, it would likely represent the pinnacle of marketing strategy.

Wait, president, how do you know so much? Did you study this subject before?

He gave Takeyusei a strange look. Just then, Takeyusei finished writing the plan and handed a new plan to Natsume Yasutaka.

"Arrange this as well, and do it as soon as possible. If you need money, just tell me. Money is the last thing we need right now."

There will be a lot of investment in video games in the future, but the money now is just sitting idle. It's true that he wants to have enough reserve funds, but he also knows how to make money circulate and ensure that the reserve funds are within a certain range.

Chapter 166 Pokémon Restaurant

Located on one of the busiest streets in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, this place offers a wide variety of the latest trendy products.

The latest appliances, the hottest electronic products, and all sorts of novel maid cafes, entertainment halls and other shops are located on this street.

This place is also known in later generations as Akihabara, a holy land for otaku.

Today, a store in a fairly good location is under renovation. From the outside, it looks like a restaurant, which is quite common on this street. However, what is striking is that the restaurant's signboard is a huge yellow lightning rat.

This image is already very familiar to girls.

Many of the Tamagotchis in their possession were raising this yellow-skinned mouse.

Because of its cute image, it is very popular with girls.

Every girl who passed by would pause briefly, curiously discussing what this shop was all about.

"Sir, are you planning to open a restaurant here?"

Finally, a girl mustered up the courage to go over and ask.

The foreman, who was rushing to finish the work, turned around, smiled, and said, "That's right, it's a restaurant related to games. We're working hard on the renovations, and you'll probably be able to see the full view of the store in five or six days."

After saying that, the team leader casually took out a creased promotional paper from his briefcase and handed it to the girl.

"Take a look at this. After you see this, you should understand what's going on."

Is it related to games?

The girl took the flyer and politely thanked him. Then, several of her friends gathered around and looked at the flyer with curiosity.