Tokyo: Being coveted by my wife, I just want to play games

Chapter 266 "I can help him"

As the saying goes, a common man is not guilty, but he is guilty of carrying a jade.

The size of the light novel market is not that large.

If we only talk about the profit output of the light novel sector, Fuyukawa Che actually has no interest at all. It's just like he doesn't care much about the music industry. But there is no way, light novels are the origin of most IPs, and the profits extended from this sector are too huge.

Dong Chuan Che must eat this piece of fat meat. However, Dong Chuan Che is not the only one who can see this piece of fat meat.

Kawakado Bookstore, currently the largest light novel platform in Japan, is itself a subsidiary of Japan's top pan-entertainment group, the Kondo Ryūmenomiya Entertainment Group.

The two most well-known game companies in Japan are NICO and SATE.

These two game companies are indeed top-notch, but in fact, if we talk about the ability to make money, the Kondo Ryūdō Group is a super-large group at the same level as these two.

However, compared with NICO and SATE, the quality of Kondo Suzumenaga's works is average, and there are no classic 3A masterpieces. His main business is to extend IPs such as light novels and animations, such as making them into games, and the bulk of his profits come from IP derivatives.

At the same time, they also control the [Comic Dragon's Cave].

【Comic Dragon's Cave】is Japan's largest offline chain store for game discs, animation discs, comic books, music CDs and peripheral products. It is the largest offline physical channel provider in Japan's pan-entertainment field! .
The next afternoon.

"It seems that this Tokawa Tetsu is determined to enter the field of light novels as the president said. Mr. Executive Director, I think we should follow the president's instructions and go talk to Tokawa Tetsu."

Kawakado Library Building, Executive Office.

Holding the document report in his hand, Minister Takahashi persuaded carefully.

Although Kawasaki Bookstore seems to be in direct competition with Toru Fuyukawa's light novel website,
First of all, Toru Fuyukawa has not yet shown much potential and aggressiveness in the field of light novels.

Secondly, the purpose of Kawakado Bookstore's existence is to serve Kondo Ryoumegumi. In addition to IP derivatives, Kondo Ryoumegumi's main business is mainly offline physical stores.

Moreover, antitrust laws do exist internationally. Although they can be solved through means such as [public relations], the cost would be very high.

Therefore, Kondo Ryūmengiya will not overly suppress those peers who are not threatening to him, but will make himself a channel operator like NICO and SATE. He produces content while collecting "rent" from peers all over the world.

To put it simply, NICO's main business is the handheld channel, SATE's main business is the console channel, and Kondo Suzumiya's main business is the offline physical channel.

Mastering a complete channel is one of the reasons why Kondo Ryūmenomiya can be compared with the previous two. As for Toru Fuyukawa, the most popular game producer in the past two years, although I am not sure about the novels he wrote, it is always right to make a favor for him. After all, Toru Fuyukawa is no longer a small shrimp.

Yesterday at noon, when the news that Tokawa Tetsu was going to write a book came out, Kawasaki Bookstore President Yokota, who was far away in the United States, called Executive Director Tian Yuan and asked him to go to Shengguang Publishing House in person to meet Tokawa Tetsu. However,
After hearing what Director Takahashi said, Executive Director Tian Yuan, who had a slicked-back hair, was smoking a cigar nonchalantly behind the boss's desk.

Exhaling a puff of smoke, he smiled easily and said, "Takahashi, you are too cautious and have no vision. Although Dongchuan Che has been making a lot of noise recently, he is a newcomer in this industry after all. If we take the initiative to find him at this time.

Not to mention that the more proactive we are, the harder it will be to negotiate a profit-sharing contract. If other people see us doing this, what will they think? They will think that we are afraid of Dongchuan Che, and that we are a little weak. Then when they come to us to negotiate a contract in the future, they will definitely push us further. Takahashi, your vision is still not high enough. If people's hearts are scattered, it will be difficult to lead the team."

Executive Director Tian Yuan spoke with confidence, but there was not much sense of superiority in his eyes, but more of dissatisfaction.

Of course, he knew that even if he said more, there was no reason, because meeting Toru Fuyukawa at this time would be beneficial without any harm. But in addition to the fact that he didn't think Toru Fuyukawa could write any good works once he entered the field of light novels, it was also because he and President Yokota had conflicts.

President Yokota of Kawakado Bookstore is 69 years old this year and will retire next year. Retirement is not a big deal, but after President Yokota retires, who will take the position of president will be a delicate issue, and he is not the one supported by President Yokota.

Emotionally, he was unwilling to listen to Yokota's orders; logically, he wanted to send a signal to the people in his faction, a signal that he had the confidence to confront Yokota's faction head-on in the upcoming battle for the presidency.

Moreover, he did not think that the influence of Toru Fukawa's work would be so great as to snatch a large market share from Kawasaki Bookstore. In fact, if Toru Fukawa's work failed, his opponents would laugh at him for being paranoid and lacking the spirit of a great general.

"This Dongchuan Che is not worth my risk."

Director Tian Yuan was thinking casually, and at this moment, the door of the director's office was suddenly pushed open, and the female secretary ran in in a panic holding a tablet computer.

"Director, things are getting complicated! Just now, Mr. Fuyukawa of Shengguangsha and Executive Director Kuriyama of SATE issued a joint statement! They claim that in the future, all physical books under Shengguangsha will be available in SATE's offline stores!"

"Physical book, what's going on."

Upon hearing the sudden news, Executive Director Tian Yuan frowned instantly.

The Japanese light novel industry is different from the online novel industry in China. Although most light novels were initially published online in the form of online serials, the sales of physical books in Japan account for a much larger proportion.

However, the costs and risks of physical books are obviously much greater than those of online serials. The possibility of inventory backlogs alone is enough to exclude most light novels from physical publishing.

Normally only those very popular light novels will be printed and published, but wasn’t Toru Fuyukawa’s work just released?

Losing money to gain publicity?
Looking at the group photo on the female secretary's tablet, and seeing the smiling face of Toru Fuyukawa and the equally smiling face of Executive Director Kuriyama, Executive Director Tanen frowned even more!
He didn't know Toru Fuyukawa, but because SATE also had offline physical stores, he had carefully studied SATE's managing director Kuriyama!
Executive Director Kuriyama may look like a kind old man, but he is actually extremely proud and arrogant.

Without seeing huge benefits, even if Executive Director Kuriyama wanted to win over Toru Fuyukawa, he would at most ask his subordinates to find Toru Fuyukawa. He would not go to the Holy Light Society to find someone in person, and negotiate a cooperation in such a short time!
What happened in between?!

Sensing the danger, Executive Director Tian Yuan felt goosebumps all over his body!

He quickly put out his cigar and took the tablet from the secretary.

Without looking at Dongchuan Che's smiling profile, he quickly retrieved the relevant data of ["No Holy Light" light novel website] under the guidance of the female secretary. When several bar charts with the words "Sword Art Online Data" appeared in front of him, his eyes widened!
"A 30,000-word novel with 500,000 favorites???"

“89% completion rate???”

When Executive Director Tian Yuan saw the first two data, he was stunned.

To be honest, he hasn't been working as a front-line editor for a long time, but these two data are still too outrageous!

If the results are not fake, the top authors on their website will only have less than 89 collections for their new books. Of course, Fuyukawa Tetsu's own influence is much higher than that of light novel authors, and spans multiple fields, so this collection cannot be used as a criterion, but an % completion rate is too scary!

The completion rate is the number of readers who have read the latest chapter!
This data can directly represent the quality of this work to a certain extent!

Even with the influence of Dongchuan Che, with a collection of 89, an % completion rate is still too exaggerated!

There is absolutely no problem with the quality of this work, and it is very, very good!
"Things are in trouble."

Executive Director Tian Yuan thought to himself that this was not good, but it was obvious that it was already too late.

After a day of fermentation, the entire light novel industry has been swept by the tsunami called "Sword Art Online"!

Under the stunned gaze of his peers in the industry, while Executive Director Tian Yuan was still trying to find a way to remedy the problem, the [“No Holy Light” Light Novel APP] had already entered into rapid development mode.

People from other companies cannot grasp the sales of novels in real time, but they can get a glimpse of it directly through the number of downloads of the APP! Under everyone's dull gaze, ["No Holy Light" light novel APP] rushed all the way up the IOS rankings. Almost every time you pull down to refresh the interface, the ranking will jump up!
The book was released at 5pm yesterday afternoon, and by 7pm the APP had already entered the top 20 of the IOS list, and now it has directly jumped to sixth place!
Ranked above and below [“No Holy Light” Light Novel APP] are social software such as LINE, X, and YouTube, which already have extremely large traffic!

Terrible traffic!

This is not only because of the influence of Toru Fuyukawa himself, and not only because the quality of "Sword Art Online" itself is indeed very high, but also because Seikansha and SATE have joined forces.

SATE also operates offline channels, but their offline chain stores are in the form of [PH console specialty stores], which only sell games and game consoles.

This is certainly not because they don't want to grow bigger and stronger, but because they themselves have not developed in the direction of light novels, animation and peripherals, and there is also the outside world surrounding Kondo Suzumenori, and few third-party manufacturers dare to sell their products in their stores, so SATE's offline physical stores cannot develop other sectors. But now it's different, Dongchuan Che has appeared.

Dongchuan Che is not very interested in offline physical stores. After all, these things are heavy assets.

What are heavy assets? They are office buildings, machinery and equipment, and factory buildings. Although they are relatively stable and can last for a long time, they require large investments and have low returns.

Dongchuan Che has no interest in this kind of business, but SATE itself sells game consoles and game discs. Although online shopping is also very developed now, physical stores are still indispensable. On one side is Dongchuan Che, who has no interest in physical stores but has strong content production capabilities; on the other side is SATE, who must set up physical stores but has few things to sell in the stores.

In this case, it was a natural fit.

Explosive!

When the photo of Toru Fuyukawa and Executive Managing Director Kuriyama was leaked, it immediately caused a sensation on the entire Internet!
There is no way. Both Dongchuan Che and SATE have extremely strong influence, and the areas they cover are different.

Dongchuan Che focuses on the pan-entertainment field, while SATE's business is not just games, they also make various electronic products, such as headphones and televisions.

The influences are complementary. Now, not to mention those otakus who like to read light novels or play games, even many people who don’t read novels or play games are curious and download the [“No Holy Light” Light Novel APP].

Traffic is booming!

Suddenly, paper became expensive in Tokyo!
Students in the subway; workers squatting in the company; young men and women playing guitar in the subway, people are watching "Sword Art Online" everywhere!
Especially with the first climax of the plot, or the first knife - the recording of the death of Xiao Xin, a member of the "Black Cat Group on a Moonlit Night", the outside world was completely boiling.

All of a sudden, all kinds of comments like [Dongchuan Che, you have no heart!] [Will the old thief Dongchuan die if he doesn't use his knife?!] [Damn it! I'm going to throw shit at his doorstep tonight!] [Dongchuan Che, a warrior of true love] [Boycott Dongchuan, everyone has the responsibility] immediately flooded all major forums.

The whole network is condemning it!

Some people even went downstairs to the Holy Light Society to hold up banners, but it was useless. Keiko, who had taken over the Holy Light House, even ordered a few cups of milk tea for these activists who held up banners.

There was no other reason, mainly because she saw a few old faces from the "Sekiro" and "Fate" era who came to pull the banner.
What’s interesting is that this scene was also captured by some media outlets, and as a result, with the help of these strange jokes, the popularity of Sword Art Online has become even higher. However, some interesting little accidents also happened during this process.

Mainly Huizi's.

Huizi is almost 40 years old this year, but her skin is well maintained and she exudes the fragrance of a gentle lady. In addition, she ordered milk tea for those otakus holding banners. So, one afternoon when Dongchuan Che went downstairs to buy cigarettes, he saw a boy who was at most in college actually ran to give Huizi flowers.

The natural result was that Ah Mei muttered and complained about Kawaguchi for a long time, saying things like "Little boys know to give flowers to women, but a certain idiot has never given anyone flowers yet."

It's quite interesting. While the outside world was buzzing about "Sword Art Online", Toru Dongchuan was not idle either.
.
"Mr. Fuyukawa, you can take the time to come out and have dinner with me. I have to thank that old guy Yokota for setting up a trap for Tian Yuan. Haha, come on, have another drink."

At night, the bustling Ginza.

In a private room of a high-end restaurant with membership facilities.

After taking a look at Sayoko and the other female executives of SATE, who were singing and drinking with microphones in front of the big screen, Fuyukawa Che, who was sitting cross-legged on the tatami, heard the voice of Executive Director Kuriyama, and turned around to pick up Madoka's wine glass and clinked it with hers, saying with a smile, "Tanabe is stupid, she can't blame anyone else."

Dongchuan Che's cheeks were already a little tipsy from drinking, but his tone was very calm and composed. When he talked about Tian Yuan, a figure who was a big shot in the light novel industry, it was as if he was talking about an unknown little character.
In his eyes, Executive Director Tian Yuan was indeed a minor character not worth mentioning.

To be honest, before he approached SATE for cooperation, Toru Fukawa actually wanted to cooperate with Kondo Ryūmenomiya, after all, Kondo Ryūmenomiya's channel influence was greater. But he neither called Kawasaki's president Yokota nor the executive director Tanen.

There is no other reason, just to test whether these two people are qualified to be his allies.

Kondo Ryomenagiya's influence is indeed greater, but if we have to say which one is the most suitable, SATE is still the one.

In other words, SATE really needs Toru Fuyukawa. As long as they can get his support in content, the lock on the neck of SATE's offline physical store will not be completely unlocked, but it will become much looser. The result of this is that SATE's threat to Kondo Suzumenomiya will be further increased.

In this situation, if Yokota or Tanaka had enough vision, they would find him, Toru Dongchuan, as soon as possible, but the fact is that they did not.

It's just that Executive Director Tanen is not capable enough, and President Yokota is using a knife to kill someone.

Thinking of this, Dongchuan Che took another sip of wine and said with a smile: "This Yokota is a ruthless character. He may become a big trouble for your SATE in the future."

"A big problem for our SATE?" The old man, Senior Managing Director Kuriyama, said with a smile, "Yokota is indeed a problem, but compared to our SATE, you, Mr. Fuyukawa, should be the one who is more anxious."

The tone was teasing, even with a hint of gloating.

It turns out that the older you get, the worse your personality becomes.

Dongchuan Che smiled and shook his head, handed a cigarette to the other person, and then lit one for himself.

As the smoke floated up to the chandelier, Fuyukawa Tetsu's eyes were slightly lost in thought. What Executive Manager Kuriyama said was true. Compared to SATE, the potential conflict between him and Kondo Ryūmenomiya was indeed more intense, because the development directions of both sides were almost exactly the same.

Although Dongchuan Che has no interest in offline physical channels, what he wants to do is to build a pan-entertainment empire covering games, comics, animation, music and even film and television, and these are the fields where Kondo Suzumenomiya is located.

This is a fundamental conflict of interest, and there is almost no possibility of reconciliation. And to fight against a behemoth like Kondo Ryūmenomiya, even he, Dongchuan Che, feels a lot of pressure at this time.

"At present, my market share in these areas is not high enough to cause them too much hostility. However, the production of FGO and the old man's ring must be accelerated."

Both "Fate" and "Stardew Valley" have high sales, but these two games and even the previous "Sekiro" are not enough to become the core engines in the face of the business blueprint he envisioned.

Only works of the level of "FGO" and "Old Man Tamaki" can do it.

"FGO" can provide stable cash flow, allowing him to expand the company's scale faster.

"The Old Man's Ring" is the technical foundation for him to make stronger "Enhanced Edition: Dark Souls 3-in-" or even "A Song of Ice and Fire" and other dark fantasy games in the future. If this foundation is laid well, he can make one or even several A masterpieces a year without having to supervise it himself like "Assassin's Creed"!

Only when these two engines are completed will Dongchuan Che consider himself a true master.

Thinking of this, Toru Dongchuan's eyes gradually became excited, but before he could get excited for a while, he was dragged by Executive Director Kuriyama to drink again.

The two grown men were drinking and chatting, and the women were the same, singing and drinking. And it was obvious that the women of the Dongchuan family were in a completely different state when facing this kind of drinking party.

Sato Fujiko and Miyano Mitsuwa both came from the marketing department. They were old employees of SATE, and the female executives brought by Managing Director Kuriyama were also old acquaintances of theirs. Therefore, they drank happily and had a lot of fun.

Sayoko is fine.

After two years of training, she was able to handle this kind of drinking party. However, her personality was still relatively quiet, so she didn't play as crazy as Miyano Mitsuko and Sato Fujiko. She mainly listened to songs and drank, occasionally smiled at some female cadres who came up to toast, and looked at Dongchuan Che from time to time.

The three women were accustomed to this kind of scene, but one was different.

"Is this what they call a woman's status depends on her husband?"

Smiling, she clinked glasses with a female cadre who took the initiative to toast her. Chika Ohara, who was wearing a deep V white dress, tilted her head back and drank a mouthful of strong foreign wine. Then she sat sideways on the sofa, one hand resting on her folded white thighs, the other hand resting on the sofa, and looked at Dongchuan Che with blurred eyes.

She has naturally experienced this kind of situation too many times. But unlike Miyano Mitsuko and the others, she has been in NTsoft since her debut.

Although she held a high position in NTsoft at that time, NTsoft's size and status were there.

Although she was not bullied, she was rarely treated with such respect. After all, in addition to the gap in the strength of the companies, her position was too high. She could not talk to big men like Executive Managing Director Kuriyama, and she was still inferior to the cadres of the same level because NTsoft was not strong enough.

To be honest, she claims that she is not a vain person. Or to be more precise, she rarely has such thoughts as "I am superior to others" or "I want to gain the respect of so-and-so", but everyone is more or less vain.

Seeing those SATE cadres who used to be indifferent to her now respectfully came up to toast her, it was impossible for her to say that she didn't feel anything. And she knew very well that all this was because of Dongchuan Che.

Thinking of this, she looked into Dongchuan Che's eyes, which gradually changed from smile to love, with a hint of imperceptible admiration.

"By the way, it seems that he often works overtime at noon to write? He writes alone. Maybe I can go and help him?"

Her eyes seemed to be thinking about something, but soon, as if she had thought of something, Ohara Chika's face, which was already a little tipsy from drinking, became even redder.

(End of this chapter)