Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

"Father, what do you mean by this?"

Kentaro Hayakawa countered, "Do you think that kid named Takeyusei is slacking off?"

Hayakawa Ueto thought for a moment and said, "From all perspectives, their employees are not working overtime, are not very busy, and do not seem to be working hard to develop the business. It's more like they are just living off their past achievements."

Kentaro Hayakawa said, "Have you seen the recent staff turnover at Yusei Electronics Entertainment?"

"Personnel mobility?"

Hayakawa Ueto thought about it carefully.

He recalled that the number of employees at Yuxing Electronic Entertainment had been increasing for about three or four months.

And it only keeps increasing, never decreasing.

"You should understand that only a rapidly growing company needs more fresh blood, especially one that is growing its staff at a very fast pace. How could such a company possibly slack off?"

Hayakawa Ueto frowned.

It seems so.

He had thought about this before and had been on guard for a while.

However, apart from the continuous expansion of its staff, Yuxing Electronic Entertainment has not made any significant moves, focusing instead on developing various sequel games.

Like several sequels to the Super Baseball League.

There are also sequels to various ball sports, Zero Racing, Pac-Man, Bomberman, Contra, and other games.

These games did have a lot of innovation when they were released, and the graphics were more refined, which seemed to show some effort. However, compared with the rapid growth of Yuxing Electronic Entertainment in the past, this progress is somewhat of a regression.

Chapter 239 We must never let our guard down.

Because of the rapid expansion of Yusei Electronics Entertainment's staff, Hayakawa Ueto was wary for a while. Later, after seeing the release of those games, Hayakawa Ueto finally felt that it was probably more because the games themselves were becoming more difficult to make.

To maintain a competitive edge in the industry and develop multiple game genres simultaneously, it is essential to increase the number of employees.

He had previously foreseen future trends in gaming from games like 3D Racing and 3D Sun Knight.

The number of employees will increase rapidly as the game becomes more complex.

The development teams for both 3D Racing and 3D Sun Knight have expanded to around 130 people each as a result.

Compared to Yuxing Electronics Entertainment, where each game development team still maintains a workforce of less than one hundred people, this is actually an acceptable number.

However, after listening to his father's words, he reconsidered and realized that things were indeed not so simple.

“Never underestimate your enemy unless they are truly dead,” Kentaro Hayakawa said earnestly.

"So, Father, you mean they've been hiding their strength as much as possible? But their employees have always had it easy."

Kentaro Hayakawa shook his head and said, "To be honest, I don't quite understand this either, but based on my many years of experience, I think things are not that simple. So, don't let your guard down against Yusei Electronics Entertainment. Of course, I'm not saying this to urge you to work harder; I just want you to stay vigilant."

Hayakawa Ueto nodded: "I understand. I will be more vigilant and will not let my guard down easily."

Hayakawa Ueto's relationship with his father was just average in the past, neither particularly good nor particularly bad.

He could listen to his father's teachings, so he began to think about them seriously.

This Zhu Youxing is indeed a very threatening person; he has been causing trouble ever since he started this video game industry.

I really shouldn't let my guard down against Youxing Electronic Entertainment now.

Just like my father said, unless that company is dead.

Upon returning to his department, Hayakawa Ueto immediately assigned people to focus more intently on investigating the dynamics of Yusei Electronic Entertainment.

Let's see if we can find any clues from the slightest hints.

However, not long after he made his decision, that afternoon, Yuxing Electronic Entertainment made an announcement.

They will be developing a brand new Metrorod game, and progress is already rapid, with an expected official release the following spring.

Originally, Metroid was just a sequel product from Yusei Electronics, which had been releasing sequels all along.

However, thanks to his father's suggestion, Hayakawa Ueto paid extra attention to the news when he learned about it in the afternoon.

He then noticed that this was another video game development led by Takeyusei, several months after the last one.

Every video game produced under the leadership of Takeyusei is a serious and uncomplicated project.

He also noticed that the game development team seemed to have around sixty people, and there seemed to be some additional temporary hires joining from time to time.

Under these circumstances, they will guarantee the game's official release next spring.

This is already quite challenging considering the current scale of game production.

The amount of code required to create a game is staggering, and it's no easy feat for a hundred people to develop a game in just a few months.

It seems this is truly a game that Youxing Electronics Entertainment is preparing to showcase its strength. He needs to pay special attention to it, otherwise he might really be caught off guard.

If he remembers correctly, Metroid is a so-called Metroidvania-style game.

This Metroidvania game is specifically named after Metrorod, which shows the pioneering significance of Metrorod himself.

If such a groundbreaking game were to fail, it would severely damage the company's reputation, and Youxing Electronics Entertainment probably wouldn't dare to take that risk lightly.

Meanwhile, on the Bamboo Star side, the development of Metroid entered the mid-game after October.

The game itself is mostly complete, but the sound effects haven't been developed yet because Zhuyouxing didn't have much time before. Now, they can finally start planning and preparing for it.

Thanks to the special training that Zhuyouxing provided to sound effects producers, there are now more than 20 people in the company who can work as sound effects producers, and each of them has developed their own unique style.

Once Zhu Youxing provides a general direction, they can proceed with the sound effects programming.

However, the sound effects this time are obviously more complex.

In Street Fighter, in addition to accumulating a huge amount of motion data, the game developers also made great progress in sound effects.

Because the battles in action fighting games are constantly changing, the sound effects will also be very chaotic.

If the person writing the sound effects program isn't careful and focused, the overall sound effects of the game will be greatly diminished.

Don't underestimate the impact of sound effects on a game.

Sometimes, good sound effects can increase a player's engagement in the game by at least 30%.

However, a bad sound effect can make players feel disgusted immediately, or even make them give up on the game.

Zhu Youxing didn't want to fall into a trap in this regard.

So Zhu Youxing simply transferred several people who had participated in the development of the Street Fighter game's sound effects to the site temporarily.

Then I locked them all in a small dark room and personally taught them one by one how to present the game's sound effects more perfectly.

The complexity of the sound effects in this Metroroth game is not much less than that of Street Fighter.

"I need at least thirty different sound effects for the Metroid cubs. Don't underestimate the fact that the Metroid cubs don't appear often; they are still very important. And then there's Samus himself. I need different sound effects for different stages of injury and different strength levels. They need to be progressively enhanced. This is a powerful tool to further improve player feedback. Don't underestimate these differences in sound effects; players will love the game because of them."

Zhu Youxing explained things to everyone involved in the sound effects production in detail, ensuring they fully understood his ideas.

This is essentially equivalent to sharing all the experiences I learned in later generations with them, some of which were even more than ten years ahead of their time.

Since the original plan was to enhance the performance of the cartridges, some things could be made more daring and radical.

Otherwise, it would be a waste of all the preparations.

Chapter 240 The Importance of Sound Effects and Composition

The employees responsible for creating the sound effects were in a real bind.

They were not unable to understand Zhu Youxing's demands.

It is indeed quite complicated.

It's much more difficult than the games I made before.

However, this also means they are growing very quickly.

This was a lecture about the future specifically for them. If they can fully grasp it, their future achievements in game development sound effects will be even more terrifying.

In addition to creating game sound effects, game music production is also required.

Game sound effects and music are two completely different types of music.

In the early stages of game development for 8-bit and 16-bit game consoles, these two types were not separated because the requirements for game sound effects were not that high at the time.

But this time it's different. This time the sound effects have been significantly improved, on par with Street Fighter.

Employees specializing in sound effects may not be able to meet their own requirements for music production.

However, he was not worried.

The company still employs several full-time composers who were recruited in the past.

They are now quite well-known in the industry.

While their compositions in the past weren't bad, they certainly weren't outstanding in the face of competition within the industry.

So they didn't gain much fame and couldn't develop their business.

The best one might be the composer that Matsuhashi Minoru introduced.

But once they entered the video game industry, their status immediately began to rise.

There weren't many game music creators to begin with.

Those who had just joined the professional game music production team were among the first to reap the benefits, becoming very successful game music producers.

If we were to rate the popularity of their compositions in the past using a score, it would be at most a three out of ten.

However, once they entered the game industry, even without any improvement in their music composition, their popularity increased from three points to six points.

Once they gained a certain level of fame, they finally realized how correct their initial choice had been, and they were also very grateful to Zhu Youxing for recruiting them.

As for that composer who left the game composition industry in a fit of anger, he is still penniless and has made almost no impact on the composition industry.

Later, it was said that this guy's reputation started to rise because of the game, and he also planned to try his luck at other game development companies.

However, apart from Yuxing Electronic Entertainment, other game companies at that time did not pay much attention to game sound effects.

The compensation offered by Zhuyouxing at the time was something that most game companies would not be willing to pay.

A 50% discount is acceptable.