Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 976: Various Big Shots

"Congratulations, congratulations! Congratulations on the grand opening of your park!"

"Your park is truly incredible. Honestly, I don't even want to leave this amazing real-world game world!"

"Here, this is my gift—specially prepared to celebrate your park's opening."

Inside a castle-like structure within Gamestar Park, a small-scale opening ceremony was underway.

The attendees included prominent figures from all over the world, as well as official representatives from the Japanese government.

On one hand, these officials were here to enjoy the park's unique services—attended at all times by adorable Toad-like mascots who served them and spoke in delightfully cute lines.

On the other hand, they were taking the opportunity to mingle with influential overseas business figures in attendance.

If they could use this chance to attract even just one or two foreign investments, their annual performance reports would look a whole lot better.

Just take a look at some of the industry giants who showed up:

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The current CEO of the Morgan Group, Hack Brown—the founder of Brown Entertainment, one of the owners of the American media giant Kingdini, Facebook's current CEO Bob...

And several European football club owners from top-tier leagues.

These club owners were all extremely wealthy. After all, anyone who can afford to maintain a world-class football team is far from ordinary.

Under normal circumstances, these Japanese officials would never get the chance to meet so many top business leaders in one place.

Even in an official capacity, it would be hard to get more than a few of them interested at once.

But Takayuki had that kind of influence.

Almost without anyone noticing, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had grown into something truly incredible.

As for these guests, Takayuki himself wasn't particularly excited by their presence. He wasn't someone who liked throwing lavish events.

But this was a theme park opening—and not just any park, but the world's first-ever video game-themed amusement park. That made it something special.

So, after strong recommendations from the team, Takayuki personally issued invitations to many of the high-profile business figures attending the ceremony.

And they actually came.

All of them had received favors or shared interests with Takayuki in the past. Unknowingly, they'd already been tied to him through various business connections.

The football club owners, for example, had since expanded into managing their own esports organizations, gaining solid influence in the esports industry. Players from their clubs frequently dominated key esports tournaments.

The Morgan Group had been a long-standing partner. Although their cooperation had cooled for a time, they reconnected thanks to coordination from Lorenzo. Now they were working together again—this time to counter the aggressive expansion of MicForce in mobile internet and smart devices.

As of now, MicForce's share in the mobile internet market had dropped below 20%. Takayuki considered this a major win.

In this world, MicForce was an electronics titan that could have potentially become even scarier than Apple from the original world. But thanks to Takayuki's interventions, they now only held a small market share—while his side, including Facebook, controlled the majority. That alone was a big success.

Completely crushing MicForce wasn't realistic. The company was backed entirely by American capital, and even if just to protect its domestic industry and market, the U.S. government would never allow Gamestar Electronic Entertainment to fully drive them out.

So the current situation was already ideal: a decisive win without stepping over the line. The U.S. government had no grounds to object—they could only chalk it up to losing in a fair market competition.

Now, the U.S. was hoping that a new domestic company might rise again to reclaim some of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's global influence.

Back at the ceremony, one particularly notable figure was Hack Brown, the owner of Brown Entertainment.

He was an old friend.

In the past, he founded Lyrda, essentially this world's equivalent of Atari.

Unlike the original world's Atari, though, Hack Brown had been a much steadier and calmer leader.

If things had gone according to plan, Hack Brown could have carved out a solid space in the video game industry, perhaps even standing shoulder to shoulder with Gamestar Electronic Entertainment in the console market.

Unfortunately, the shareholders of Lyrda at the time weren't united. They ended up scheming to push Hack Brown out.

In the end, he left the very company he had created and later founded Brown Entertainment, a company almost entirely funded by himself.

This time, he no longer had the capacity to develop consoles—but he could still make games. And over the following decades, his team steadily released a wide variety of high-quality titles.

Among the most famous was the Modern Warfare series.

This version of Modern Warfare was quite similar to the one in the original world, but placed far more emphasis on single-player campaigns. Even though online multiplayer revenue was skyrocketing, Hack Brown never wavered—he continued creating top-notch single-player content, standing out in the industry as a rare holdout.

Takayuki had once felt regret that the original Call of Duty series had gradually abandoned single-player campaigns to chase the online market.

From a business standpoint, it was understandable. But from a gamer's perspective, Takayuki still hoped to see exciting and meaningful single-player campaigns.

Besides Modern Warfare, Brown Entertainment also had a long-running MMORPG called Mystic Dragon's Treasure.

It had been around for more than a decade and remained very popular with its player base.

Takayuki had an account in that game himself. It gave him strong World of Warcraft vibes.

He remembered spending sleepless nights with his guild pushing raid bosses, aiming for server-first or second kills.

That era still filled him with fond memories.

As for Brown Entertainment, since it no longer participated in console development, Hack Brown had no plans to create his own game platform. Instead, he relied entirely on the two dominant console platforms and the PC battle.net-style network.

Because of that, his relationship with Takayuki remained close. They just hadn't had many chances to meet in the past—but now was the perfect opportunity to reconnect.