Game Developer in the World of Anime

Although Ichin normally doesn't interfere much with the voice acting process, whenever he had spare time, he would still visit the recording sessions to check in on the progress and the general atmosphere.

After a few visits, he'd grown familiar with several voice actors—especially those who were into gaming. Some of them had already reserved early access with Ichin, hoping to play the game as soon as it was finished.

Naturally, Ichin agreed without hesitation.

"So yeah, don't be too envious of those voice actors. Even if they get the game early, they won't be streaming it. They'll just hole up at home, play it all night, and then post on Twitter to stir some envy. Of course, it's also possible that some of them might not even finish it before release day—they're super busy, especially the popular ones. As for post-release streams, Bilibili's already been in touch with me. There'll be an official promo page and we'll be inviting a dozen or so streamers from the single-player category to play the game live. If you're still unsure about the game, you can wait and watch their streams before deciding."

While chatting, Ichin scrubbed through the PV video until he reached clips of some side mini-games, like baseball and training on a wooden dummy.

"Alright, that's enough about the voice actors. Some of them haven't been announced yet, so I can't spoil too much. Let's talk about this instead—the game's character system includes five core attributes you can raise: Knowledge, Courage, Dexterity, Kindness, and Charm. These will affect both daily interactions and combat situations. Of course, I won't go into too much detail—gotta let you discover that yourselves—but if you want to romance characters, you'll definitely need to raise your stats."

That last line immediately got everyone excited.

"Wait... romance? You for real?"

"Bro, is this game a harem sim now?"

"So far there's only Ann… wait, are you telling me Morgana's a girl too?"

Even though Morgana's voice actor was female, no one was sure if the character itself was.

"It's a cat… surely not, right?"

"Well... doesn't hurt to try!"

As the comments got increasingly unhinged, Ichin could only shake his head in exasperation.

"You guys need to calm down. Yeah, we've only revealed one female character so far, but I can tell you this: there are three more female members of the main cast that haven't been announced yet. They'll appear in PV4, so stay tuned. Each one has a unique personality, and I worked directly with the art team on their designs. Trust me, every one of them could be 'your waifu.' And of course, there are some non-party female characters with their own side plots that can be romanced too."

As both the developer and a player himself, Ichin understood the player mindset well.

In a game like this—RPG with daily life elements—it was crucial to have a wide cast of main and side characters to interact with.

In fact, he had even gone out of his way to flesh out extra side plots for the romancable characters during development.

As for the famously tough "perfect first playthrough" from Persona 5, Ichin had already adjusted the difficulty balance, so players wouldn't feel like they had to sacrifice one thing to get another.

After explaining all that and finishing his commentary on the PV3 elements, Ichin leaned back a bit.

"Well, that's about it for the PV breakdown. Now that it's done, I've got a bit of free time. What should I do next?"

He stretched his neck and took a sip of his drink while reading suggestions from the chat.

"Huh? You guys want me to play Hollow Knight? I mean, I could, but the game's been out for a while—most of you have probably already played it. Would watching me play it even be interesting?"

Immediately, the chat exploded with dozens of "It would!"

"Well, well... I see how it is. You guys just wanna see me embarrass myself, huh? Tch. You're in for a surprise then. Sure, I'm not the best gamer just because I make games, but I'm no pushover either. And Hollow Knight? I know that game inside out. Since we've got time, alright—I'll give you guys a little show."

He logged into Steam, getting ready to fire up Hollow Knight.

"Wonder which boss rotation it is this week…"

Just as he was about to launch the game, his bedroom door slammed open with a loud "BANG!"

"Ichin! Something huge just happened!"

Even with his headphones on, Ichin jumped in surprise.

Luckily, he wasn't the type to curse instinctively—and he remembered he was still live on stream.

Turning around, he saw that it was Kō Yagami, followed by Rin Toyama and Umiko, with Utaha entering behind them, cat in arms.

"Why are all of you here? What happened? Something with the company?"

"No, not the company! Haven't you heard?"

Kō didn't even care that he was still streaming and blurted out with a stunned expression,

"Activision—Activision Blizzard is getting acquired by Microsoft!"

"HUH?!"

Ichin's first reaction was disbelief—it had to be fake, right?

But seeing everyone's shocked and serious expressions, it clearly wasn't some early April Fool's prank.

"Wait, you're serious?"

Everyone nodded.

Utaha added, "Yep, I just searched it on my phone—it's legit. The news just dropped."

Ichin turned back to his PC, closed Steam, opened his browser, and switched the OBS source so viewers could see his screen.

While typing, he said, "Alright, forget about waifus for a second. I'll make a vlog later introducing our company staff if that'll shut you up. But right now, we've got breaking news. If anyone here knows Japanese, you might've already seen it—Microsoft is reportedly acquiring Activision Blizzard."

The stream chat immediately blew up with waves of:

"???"

Clearly, no one in chat believed it either.

But after a few seconds of doubt, some fast-fingered viewers had already looked it up and were posting messages:

> "HOLY SH*T IT'S REAL! Microsoft's buying them out! DAMN they got money!"

Ichin also found the just-published article on a local gaming news site.

"Damn… it's true. $69.7 billion. Microsoft's cash flow is even crazier than I thought. This is Activision Blizzard we're talking about—yeah, their IPs have been slacking lately, and Blizzard's had its share of scandals, but still, a dying camel's bigger than a horse. And they're seriously getting acquired?!"

He read through the article with the stream, viewers following along.

Once done, Ichin leaned back in his chair and let out a breath.

"Welp… Sony's doomsday has officially begun."

*