Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 965: Did Something Incredible Again

Zombie Defense, conceived by Kazumi, was in part inspired by their earlier hit Farm Defense, but it introduced several new gameplay mechanics. During the Summer Sale, it sold 470,000 copies, each priced at $3.

Mystic Painter, a puzzle game based on solving problems through drawing, was co-created by Oto-chan and Kazumi.

The game had a strong artistic flair and, for that reason, wasn't particularly popular with the mainstream audience. However, every scene in the game was beautiful enough to be used as desktop wallpaper. With a sale price of just $3, many players bought it just to use it as a screenshot generator. It sold 330,000 copies during the sale.

...

Over the years, the Trio had developed over ten games, and every single one sold at least 100,000 units during the Summer Sale.

The profit share shown in their backend dashboard had increased by over $6 million.

And if carefully budgeted, that amount was more than enough to fund a mid-tier game.

It was an unexpected windfall.

These indie games had long since faded from the spotlight. However, in the backend analytics, there had always been a steady indicator: each game still had tens of thousands of players who had added it to their wishlists.

...

This sale acted like a mass wishlist cleanup—if the price was low enough, players bought everything in bulk. What had once been passive wishlist data was now turned into cold, hard cash.

At that moment, Kazumi's eyes were sparkling.

She was already thinking about treating herself to some new clothes.

Oto-chan and Aiko were more practical—they were already excitedly discussing plans to develop a mid-budget game.

Open-world games were still out of reach, but a solid linear level-based title was now well within their capabilities.

"This sale is amazing! Our teacher is incredible—this discount event made us so much money!"

Kazumi was already bouncing with joy, and Oto-chan and Aiko couldn't suppress their smiles either.

With revenue like this, no indie developer could stay calm.

And they weren't alone—many others were sharing the same joy.

Across the globe, game sales had entered a state of frenzy.

Many indie developers who had long given up on their older games were now seeing unexpected revenue explosions.

Sure, the dollar figures weren't astronomical, especially since most indie games were sold for under $5 during the sale.

But small streams make a river. Even a mosquito's leg is meat, as the saying goes.

Without this sale, those old titles would never have brought in this much revenue in such a short time.

Even those developers who had initially grumbled about being invited to the sale by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment were now completely won over.

Mid-size developers were also ecstatic.

One day of revenue had surpassed their usual full-game sales performance.

And they had spent zero on marketing—just sat back and collected income.

Over the next year, many of them would be silently grateful they had joined this Summer Sale.

Because next time, things might not be so easy.

Next time, Gamestar would likely take a cut of the profits. Plus, there would probably be many more competing sales events, reducing potential returns.

"President! We've passed a million units sold in a single day across multiple platforms—this is massive!"

At the headquarters of Surei Electronics, the director of the gaming division was enthusiastically reporting to Ueto Hayakawa the company's revenue for the past two days.

Their data showed that each of their top games sold over 1 million copies during the sale.

On PC BattleNet and Gamestar's platforms, they had earned handsome returns.

The total earnings brought in over $70 million for the game development division in just two days.

Even after taxes and deductions, it was an impressive figure.

Hayakawa had expected the sale to perform well—but at best, he thought they'd make $20–30 million.

He had even planned to let the gaming division reinvest that money into improving development tech, enhancing visual fidelity for their upcoming titles.

But hearing that the actual number was over $70 million in just 48 hours—that truly stunned him.

Across all platforms, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had sold over $1 billion worth of games in two days.

Roughly a third of that revenue came from Gamestar's own first-party titles.

The rest went to other game companies and indie developers.

At that moment, the first thought that crossed Hayakawa's mind was:

"This sale... is a goldmine."

Looking at the figures from his gaming division's director, Hayakawa couldn't help but smile.

"Excellent. In that case, no need to send the revenue to HQ. Use all of it for game development. And also... let's run our own summer sale."

"Ours?"

"That's right. If Gamestar can earn that much, then as the world's second-largest game publisher and platform provider, how can we sit this out? Even if it looks like we're jumping on the bandwagon, the players won't mind."

And it was true: players wouldn't mind at all.

On the contrary—they wished all publishers would copy Gamestar.

That way, they could buy more great games at great prices.

Gamers had been bottling up their desires for a long time.

There were so many games they wanted to play.

But prices were often too high, and they had to be selective—buy one or two titles, and sacrifice others they wanted just as much.

Now, for the first time, they had the chance to grab everything.

No way they'd miss out.

"Understood!"

The director immediately caught on and rushed back to the game division to begin preparations for their own Summer Sale.

As the door closed, Ueto Hayakawa couldn't hold back a smile.

Takayuki, you've done something incredible again.