Cat and Mouse Game

"Boss, today is the first day of registration for the national competition, and also the first day we launched the game. According to market feedback, the results are fantastic."

In the early hours of March 2nd, the lights were on in the chairman's office of Warner Communications.

Steve Ross leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed as if taking a nap, but more like listening.

Meanwhile, the subordinates, dressed in suits, despite their exhaustion, diligently reported the latest developments.

"Our people set up temporary sales points in fifteen cities across eleven states to sell video games with the Destiny Games logo to the general public."

"According to their report, in the past fourteen hours, our thirty-two sales points have served nearly nine hundred players. More than half of these players were brought directly from the national competition registration site by our outreach staff, one-third of the players came on their own initiative, and the rest were brought in through word of mouth from other players on site."

"Perhaps because the products we chose met the needs of the players, nearly 120 players bought our game after the store closed."

"If nothing unexpected happens, the players who bought the game have completely believed our story, and those who didn't buy it will become our mouthpieces. It is estimated that in three days, tens of thousands of players in North America will know that Ethan Jones secretly released the game while the national tournament was being held."

"Although word-of-mouth may seem slow, with such a large population, people can still get to know us in the shortest amount of time. The faster the spread..."

"This increases the chances that Ethan Jones is targeting us."

In fact, shortly after the release of the Jensen home console, console arcades related to it had already begun to appear in North America.

Because the price of two hundred US dollars is still too expensive for players who are struggling to make ends meet, but they still want to play the game, so the boss who saw the business opportunity was able to make a profit.

They can earn two dollars by turning on their machines for eight hours a day, at twenty-five cents an hour.

In just three months, these people were able to recoup the cost of purchasing the machines.

In less than four months, the rent and electricity bills were covered.

The rest is pure profit.

Not to mention, operating for eight hours a day is the bare minimum.

The timid boss will close the shop at midnight.

The bolder bosses would simply pull the curtains shut and continue working.

Under such continuous operation, it would take at most one month from opening to making a profit.

After this huge profit emerged, many arcades were hidden in densely populated cities throughout America.

These numerous individual vendors are the very reason Steve Ross dared to launch his attack. By renting out a portion of the arcades and stocking them with a large number of self-developed games, they would become the best, without exception, channel for the public to access pirated content.

Of course, as his subordinates said, this approach was actually very crude.

When piracy and counterfeit goods are combined, it's like pointing a lantern at a target.

They were afraid that Ethan wouldn't be caught.

But compared to a spark, a reputable gaming arcade is already the best endorsement.

And they don't do the whole process, right?

Once they spread the word that Destiny Games has released a new game, they can walk away.

As for the remaining sales?

They're selling idiots!

Send out the cassette copying method directly.

Let the market figure out the rest!

Because they don't expect to make any money from this at all!

"So, when do you think Ethan Jones will find you at the earliest?"

Ignoring his subordinates' concerns, Steve Ross asked the question that mattered most to him.

These words calmed the young man's anxiety, and he replied, "Three days at most."

"Three days? That fast?"

"Yes. Because we were recruiting people directly in front of the Fate/Grand Order and the National Football League, according to our people, some people have already noticed us today. If we do this again tomorrow, they will definitely come to check, and by the early morning of the third day..."

"Ethan Jones should know what we're doing by now."

The young man took a deep breath and said, "After all, we are one of Ethan Jones' only two remaining enemies. The other one is staying put in Palo Alto..."

They already knew that Hiroshi Yamauchi had settled in the Bay Area.

When the head of a multinational corporation is taken hostage by Ethan Jones, anyone would know that Ethan Jones is up to something big.

In this situation, even if Ethan Jones doesn't discover their underhanded tactics, they still have to prepare for the worst and treat the battlefield they're currently on as if it were their own cards.

"Then we'll sell for two more days."

"Then return those shops to their original owners."

"Then you can go to Europe and expand Warner's European market."

The middle-aged man was taken aback by the swift and decisive arrangement.

After a moment, he smiled and nodded, "Okay, boss."

Although the middle-aged man knew that his boss might be sending them to Europe to shift the blame if they were exposed, they had no choice but to comply since his boss had made the decision.

As the sun rose the next day, the worker ants on the east coast got busy again.

While waiting for the clock on the West Coast to strike nine in the morning...

Ethan had just stepped into the office when he heard Michael Dale chasing after him.

"Boss, something terrible has happened!"

"Our people sent a report overnight, indicating that problems have occurred in New York, Washington, Miami, Oakland, and other places, seemingly due to people soliciting customers at our registration sites!"

This news made Ethan grin from ear to ear.

Michael Dyer may not know the situation, but how could he not guess the inside story?

When Steve Ross used the techniques from his past life based on his memories, even Ethan knew perfectly well that Warner Communications was already eager to make its move.

And this kind of thing...

"Calm down."

Ethan waved his hand and said, "No matter what happens, our first action is to investigate thoroughly, not to rush to report to me."

"So what you need to do now is to figure things out."

"Then, tell me the whole story."

Michael Dyer was momentarily stunned by the casual remark.

Immediately afterwards, the young man, who thought he had caused trouble, nodded vigorously.

After replying "okay," he turned and left.

Six hours later, he arrived in Los Angeles and witnessed the bizarre soliciting incident reported by his subordinates.

Since Michael Dyer had already been on television, he abandoned the idea of ​​personally venturing into the lion's den and instead found a clever subordinate to strike up a conversation with the guy walking along the registration line.

Looking into the distance, he saw his subordinates leaving arm in arm with the problematic individuals. He immediately signaled his driver to follow them. After a series of twists and turns, the main control room, which he had heard of and seen before, came into view.

They had no intention of alerting the enemy; they simply waited quietly at the door.

About an hour later, he finally saw his subordinates.

At that moment, he had his hands in his pockets, and his upper body was bulging, as if he was hiding something.

He continued driving and arrived at the previously agreed meeting place. His subordinate unzipped his jacket, and a bunch of cassette tapes fell out of his arms.

The thing that looked like a rain of money, but more like a lawyer's letter, made Michael Dyer frown.

After he finished listening to his subordinate's report, the guy who had been trying to probe his thoughts immediately jumped up.

He signaled to the driver to take him back to the company immediately.

Then, Ethan heard a report in great detail—

"Boss!"

"This is really big!"

"Our home console has been hacked by our competitors!"

"There are already games on the market related to the Jensen home console!"

Ethan found the guy's loud voice a bit noisy.

While nodding slightly to indicate that he understood, he also picked up the cassette case on the table.

I got up and put it into the console, then picked up the controllers and evaluated them one by one.

The first game Ethan played was "The Legend of Princess Leia".

Although this game looks very impressive on the surface, with a premise that's not much different from their "Starry Night" game, once you get into the game...

The overall gameplay is not so much similar as to be highly similar; it's more like identical.

The game's flow, perfectly aligned with Starfield, made it immediately clear to Ethan that Steve Ross had simply given the game a different setting. The extremely similar character models to Skywalker Saga further convinced Ethan that the developers had merely transplanted code from Skywalker Saga.

That's right.

It's just moving code.

Although Skywalker Legends is an arcade game and Starry Sky is a console game, the two games were developed in the same environment and with similar development approaches.

When the source material for these products is the second-generation Apple, and the design concept is the quarter-screen outlined by Evelyn, then making sure the boss can understand the code is what the R&D team should be doing.

In addition, Ethan had intended to bring Empire Strikes Back to home consoles from the very beginning.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, as long as the developers can find the game's code, they can copy the models from "Empire Strikes Back" into "Starfield".

Then, only simple modifications are needed...

Thus, The Legend of Princess Leia came into being.

After playing Princess Leia's Legend, Ethan tried Pac-Man II.

The structure, so similar to that of "Ms. Pac-Man," made Ethan's eyes crinkle with laughter.

Remove the cartridge, then reinstall it and open it again.

After the sun had set, Ethan turned to Hiroshi Yamauchi beside him and asked his first question since arriving, "What did you think of these games?"

"Uh...it's a great idea, but lacks sincerity..."

Hiroshi Yamauchi thought for a while and then gave his evaluation.

"But if they want to make money off these things, then I think..."

"They might be dreaming."

When Ethan got his hands on the game cartridge produced by Steve Ross.

He then had Michael Dyer summon Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Although I didn't witness Ethan's tests in their entirety, a few scattered experiments were enough.

After watching the game produced by Warner Bros., Hiroshi Yamauchi was deeply confused.

Because he never imagined that these guys could be so crazy.

Are they directly using the names of "Pac-Man" and "Star Wars" to make games?

What's the difference between this behavior and an old man hanging himself to commit suicide?

If hacking the Jensen home console and producing related cartridge games is considered a normal way to make money, it's essentially using the Destiny game platform to promote one's own games.

If a game is fun enough, it can build a fan base.

If you can directly use the name of a famous IP to make a game, then the infringement is not only on the patent copyright of the console, but also on the copyright of IPs such as "Pac-Man" and "Star Wars".

In the former case, when the hacking technology originated from Japan, it was actually quite difficult for Destiny Game to seek redress.

The latter, when pirated games like "Pac-Man" and "Star Wars" appeared in North America, any judge would find the game salespeople guilty.

To put it bluntly, don't be fooled by the fact that some people dare to sell cartridges under the names of "Ms. Pac-Man" and "Star Wars," how many of them are actually willing to make money from them?

No normal person would do something that's so easy to catch someone!

But now, Warner is losing money to gain publicity?

This is somewhat puzzling.

"Could it be... that Steve Ross's core goal isn't making money?"

"But if it's not about making money, then what is he pursuing?"

Hiroshi Yamauchi was completely baffled.

Ethan put down the controller and said, "It's March now."

"The end of the month is the time we agreed upon."

"Then you'll be able to go back."

The sudden change of topic made Hiroshi Yamauchi squint.

The next second, he guessed what Ethan meant.

"I feel I can return to my country with good news," he said calmly.

"I hope so," Ethan replied with a smile.

Then they called Michael Dyer over.

"Let our people investigate these matters."

"There's no need to hide your identity."

"If there are indeed products bearing our company logo and our works on site, we demand that they immediately cease the infringement, hand over the game, and compensate us for our losses."

"If they refuse to cooperate, then tell them that we will definitely take legal action to protect their rights, but please do not use violence on the spot."

Since Ethan's solution was sound, Michael Dyer didn't hesitate and immediately got to work.

Hiroshi Yamauchi, however, shook his head with a smile.

Because he thought he saw a cat.

They were playing with the mice there.

As for the facts...

is also like this.

When Michael Dyer sent a team of lawyers from the agency that represented Destiny Games to help them crack down on the suddenly appearing infringers, no matter how tough their stance was, those guys wouldn't back down, seemingly determined to fight Destiny Games to the bitter end.

But when they returned to the infringing businesses on March 5th with the prepared lawyer's letter, the owners had all changed. Not only that, they were also very cooperative with Destiny Games, bringing out all the potentially infringing games in the store and handing over their profits from the past few days.

This situation completely baffled Michael Dell.

Just as he was reporting his predicament to Ethan, sincerely expressing his lack of knowledge on how to handle the situation, Ethan gave him the secret to dealing with it—

"wait."

"Wait?" Michael Dale couldn't understand.

"Why? We know perfectly well that those guys were organized and had premeditated this!"

"because……"

When answering this question, Ethan suddenly became somewhat emotional.

"Because we also know that they are unwilling to accept this."

So, we have to wait.

"Wait until they've vented their pent-up resentment."

"Wait until they've revealed all their tricks."

"To make them feel that their calculations are undoubtedly correct."

"Then, stomp them into the ground..."

Ethan's idea made Michael Dyer frown slightly.

Although he didn't understand why his boss was so sure that his enemy was someone of great importance.

But he knew that at this moment, he had no choice but to obey orders.

Just as he was pondering what kind of trials and tribulations the game of fate had endured before his arrival, a news item suddenly appeared on CBS's morning news on March 10th.

"According to the latest information obtained by our reporters, Destiny Games, the world's largest video game company, seems to have recently released new video games. One of them is a sequel to 'Ms. Pac-Man,' and the other is a story based on 'Star Wars'... Although we don't yet know why Ethan Jones would release games at this time, after our investigation, we discovered..."

"The new product from Destiny Game looks pretty interesting..."

When the news reached Ethan's ears, he immediately nodded as he leaned against the headboard.

His face was filled with understanding.

"Steve Ross, is your father-in-law also part of your offensive strategy?"

"Do you know that what you're doing will ruin your father-in-law's family as well?"

"Huh?" (End of Chapter)