“You’re going to decrease the marketing budget? Psychic Battle is a new brand name, so it won’t sell well if it isn’t advertised… Is that really okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“What are you cooking up again… my expectations are high but still…”
“You can keep your expectations high. All you have to do is sit still and get ready to count money.”
And get ready to add more orders of the specialty chips to Raitex, too. I grinned in my head as I came out of his office.
“Kang Junhyuk…”
As I lifted my head at my name, Mr. Shige walked down the opposite hallway towards me. Mr. Shige was also coming to give a report to President Yamauchi, holding approval documents in his hands. He looked at the approval files in my hands and asked.
“Did you give your report already?”
“I did just now. How’s the development going with Super Marigee 3?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, it’s going without any hitches. From what I’m hearing, you’re making a special cartridge for Psychic Battle?”
“Yes… You’ve also said that it was impossible to operate it with our current cartridge technology, Mr. Shige…”
“Slimy bastard, I’ve really been forced into a corner.”
“Oh? Are you finally surrendering?”
“Who said I was giving up~!! Just watch me. I’ll show off the best Super Marigee that the world has ever seen. I’ve been preparing as if it were my last Super Marigee game, as well as making diligent marketing arrangements~!!.”
“I’ll be anticipating the game. I truly believe you’ll come out with an amazing game, Mr. Shige.”
“Hng~ Flattery isn’t going to work. We will be talking with results~!!”
“Yes~ Then, see you at the release conference.”
I smiled and slightly lowered my head as I walked out of the office hallway.
&
A few days later, I grabbed a few of the illustrations of Psychic Battle to the game magazine press.
Just 2 years ago, FamiTong was the only specialty game magazine, but the number already grew to 4.
“Phew… Then should I start visiting them one by one?”
Holding the stuffed document bag, I visited the least popular of the four game magazines, Game Champ.
As I opened the office door and entered, the acrid smell of cigarette smoke that made a raccoon’s nest seem pleasant in comparison wafted over to me.
In this era, office smoking was a commonplace occurrence and almost every building had at least some hint of it, but this was a bit too strong… Just how much were they smoking?
‘The smell is going to pollute my clothes, I better finish quickly and leave…”
I stepped into the office and was looking around when a half bald, seemingly good natured man walked up to me and asked. The weather was slowly encroaching the beginning of winter, but the man’s armpits were smeared with sweat-stains; he was the type to sweat a lot.
“How can I help you?”
“Ah, Hello. My name is Kang Junhyuk, from Mintendo. I came to request an advertisement for a new title coming up.”
“A… d..direct visit from Mintendo to our magazine? I’m the editor-in-chief of our Game Champ, Murasaki. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
Hmm, the brand Mintendo did have a quite a bit of name recognition after all. It was easy for me to easy myself in. But Murasaki(purple) is quite a unique name. Of course, it should have a different meaning in kanji… Anyways, I followed Editor Murasaki to the guest reception room.
“I enjoy many of the games released by Mintendo myself. What game are you here to advertise for? Could it possibly be Super Marigee 3, that’s currently in development?”
“Ah… Mr. Shige is working on Super Marigee 3 in absolute secrecy, so it’s not. It’s a game called Psychic Battle.”
“Psychic Battle… It’s Mintendo’s new IP that was first announced in FamiTong awhile back.”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m the head director of Psychic Battle, Kang Junhyuk.”
“I’ve heard of you before- a brilliant Korean employee working at Mintendo..”
In contrast to what had happened at Fox Soft, seeing this type of reaction after my name was mentioned meant that my reputation had definitely increased.
“Not at all, an overstatement…”
Phew, I want to get this small-talk out of the way and leave the building. It’s suffocating to breathe in here…
I hurriedly took envelopes containing illustrations for advertising out of my bag and handed them to Mr. Murasaki. In the brown envelope contained one more item aside from the illustrations; Mr. Murasaki must have been curious as he asked me while receiving the envelopes.
“Can I open it now?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
As I smiled and nodded my head, he took out the two illustrations from the envelope. The first page was the main illustration of ‘Aoi Chebasa’, the third character with blue-colored hair that Morita drew with extra care.
“Oh ho… This is truly an amazing quality picture. The charm is naturally exuding out of the character.”
The moment Mr. Mursaki, who was wearing an incredibly satisfied face, turned to the next illustration…
“Huuuppp~!!”
The second illustration depicted Aoi Chebasa- scarred and defeated by the enemy- staring right back at him. Contrary to the fully-clothed armor that she donned on the first page, pieces of her armour were breaking apart and clothes ripped, which emanated a borderline-cautionary sense.
“This, This is…”
“These are all for advertising purposes, Haha… What do you think?”
Psychic Battle itself was targeted more towards young adults rather than children.
The main reason was because of the addition of the specialty chip inside the cartridges, which resulted in the unit price being 7480 units. Mintendo had no choice but to focus their attention on attracting the older consumers who could afford this unusually high price.
Murasaki continued to repeatedly focus his gaze between the two pages of illustrations and lasciviously grinned.
Well~ If this is the reaction of the editor-in-chief, there won’t be any problems in making it to the magazine.
“This will be an unprecedented method of advertising that was never seen before. I’m thinking about using it as the front cover of our magazine.~!!”
“That would be great for us~ If it’s possible, please put the scar-wearing illustration of Aoi Chebasa behind the first illustration so the readers would immediately experience the stark contrast between them.”
“Oh~ Alright. But there is one more thing, we would have to know in-depth details about the game to write a review…”
“Please take out the cartridge inside the envelope.”
After my remark. Mr. Murasaki eagerly took the item out of the envelope. This very item was the Psychic Battle game itself, however, different from the common Nintendo cartridges, it’s shape was about 1.5 times bigger vertically.”
“Ah…? Could this game already be finished?”
“No, If I were to explain… it’s in its testing phase? I’m only giving these out to game reviewers such as yourself, you can enjoy up to stage 2 with this.”
“Ohh~!! A service like this in the world exists?”
“Well, you’re free to keep this cartridge here or raffle it out to your readers in an event. But remember to experience playing it yourself, and please leave an article for Psychic Battle in your next edition.”
“Yes, my coworkers and I will play it together and write an article on it.”
“I’ll leave it you. Then…”
In my haste to leave this raccoon’s nest as soon as possible, I forgot one question I had to ask; I asked a question to Mr. Murasaki.
“Urhm, Editor-in-chief Murasaki, Excuse me for asking this, but what are the monthly sales for Game Champ?”
“We’re still a new magazine so we’re printing around 2,000 copies per month, but…”
“You should be able to print double that starting next month?”
“What?”
“If you trust me after playing the game, try increasing the magazine circulation. It’s sure to sell very well.”
“Huuh?”
I left this offbeat message as I walked out of the Game Champ headquarters.
“Puah~~ I thought I was about to die from suffocation…”
One of the most notable improvements I’ve made to myself was my cutback on smoking. Apart from the occasional sessions with Mr. Gunpei while chatting, I hadn’t actively smoked at all…
I took a moment to pat the smoke off my clothes and headed to the subway station.
I’ve only stopped by one magazine press when I’m… feeling… an intense bout of hunger. I became extremely famished here.
-Poong~Poong~Poong
… Why am I thinking of the documentary series ‘Excessive Eater’ from 2015 that I enjoyed watching, now…?
Anyways, I’ll be moving after I put something in my stomach first.
&
After lunch, I visited two other game magazines and repeated my procedure with Game Champ, the clock was nearing 4 PM.
The place that I was standing at was my final destination, FamiTong Magazine.
As I’ve already made an appointment with that Junpei bastard, I leisurely walked in through the front doors.
“Oh~ Junhyuk~ you came?”
“Give me water… I’m about to die from thirst.”
“You should’ve sent me the files by mail, why are you suffering needlessly?”
“But I’ll make more connections with personal visits. It’s miles better than sending it in by mail.”
“Hmm~ That’s true… but being from Mintendo, you would only need to send in a package by mail for them to be obliged.”
“Is that right? Haha…”
“What’s that?”
“Ah, an advertisement illustration specifically for FamiTong…”
“An advertisement illustration is an advertisement illustration, what’s with adding ‘specifically for FamiTong’?”
“That’s, the illustrations for each of the magazine press are different.”
“What did you say!?”
“I rolled my head around a bit.”
“Crazy… What did the other magazines say?”
“They all liked it saying they’ll use it as the main cover, why?”
“What!? Then we have no choice but to do that as well~!! Considering our relationship with Mintendo, you should’ve given everything to us~!!”
“Yeah.. I’ve actually created a unique character for you guys because of that.”
“Eng?”
The illustration that Junpei took out was an image of “Azesa Ren”, a Psychic Battle main character who was striking an alluring pose as if she was in the mood for seducing someone.”
“G..Give me a moment to wipe my nosebleed…”
“Yeah? Since you’re nose bleeding anyways, go ahead and looked at the second page too, and wipe it after…”
“Next… page? Puaaack~!! You!! Isn’t this too dangerous?”
If I described the pictures of the blue-haired Aoi Chebasa or the blonde Helena that I handed to the other magazines as being given special care by Morita, then wouldn’t Azesa Ren be the definition of pouring one’s soul into a masterpiece?
Of course, images of this calibre couldn’t be displayed with the current Family, but everything depended on imagination. The lackluster effects of the 8-bit game would be filled by the imaginations of the gamers…
Regulations regarding video games haven’t been made yet, so unless a game was specifically made to fulfill erotic needs, most games drew a conservative line around rated R topics.
For that reason, teen comics like Dragon Ball and 3×3 Aiz used this method to draw the attention of readers. (Ex: The scene of the priest constantly bombarding various girls to see their undergarments, or that to obtain a dragon ball, Bulma had to show his panties when he actually wore nothing…)
“Alright, you can stop looking now. You’re going to drill a hole in the paper, you gnome…”
“Truly baffling… wait? But saying that all magazines will put each of the different characters on their front cover is…?”
“Yup, the main theme for all game magazines next month will be Psychic Battle.”