An industry summit

Hattori turned around and turned to the next page.

A silhouette of an old newspaper suddenly appeared on the big screen, accompanied by a picture of a desolate desert and piles of cassette tapes crushed by bulldozers.

Many experienced developers in the audience were momentarily speechless.

That was in 1983, the Atari Crash.

"This same pitfall was already discovered by someone fifteen years ago."

Hattori's tone remained low, but his enunciation was extremely heavy.

"Everyone knows how many game cartridges were buried in the New Mexico desert back then. Why did it collapse? Because they thought consumers' money was too easy to fool. Poorly made reskinned products, coupled with overwhelming false advertising, could indeed make the financial reports look good in the short term. But once players are fooled, they won't be fooled a second time."

Hattori straightened up and glanced at the executives of several industry giants in the front row below the stage.

"Whether it's a game program on a CD or a plastic figurine on a shelf, if the product itself isn't of good quality, all the so-called complete industry chain layouts are just castles in the air. If the quality of the work and the product is good, and there's a reasonable brand premium, consumers are still willing to pay for it. However, if you treat players like fools and try to overdraw the value of an IP with garbage content, this short-sighted approach will not only ruin your own reputation but also completely shatter the foundation of trust in the entire industry."

Hattori bowed slightly and took a half-step back.

For a full three seconds, the audience was completely silent.

Then, the heads of several independent studios in the back row took the lead in clapping, and the applause quickly spread throughout the hall. Even the most discerning Wall Street analysts in the front row joined in the applause.

On the morning of the third day, the atmosphere in the conference hall completely changed.

Frank changed out of his usual casual clothes and into a sharp dark suit as he strode to the podium.

The large screen lit up, and instead of game footage, it displayed a topology map of a backbone fiber optic network covering the entire United States and even Eurasia.

Frank had one hand in his pocket, too lazy to even lean against the podium.

"Over the past two days, I've heard far too many ideas about fun gameplay: multiplayer online, virtual worlds, thousands of players trading and teaming up on a single server."

Frank smiled and pressed the page turner.

A series of terms that would give the game developers present a headache appeared on the screen: transoceanic packet loss rate, data packet retransmission mechanism,

Peak number of concurrent connections.

"I'd like to ask everyone here, when you received three million US dollar in seed funding from venture capitalists, how much of it did you plan to allocate to buying Sun workstations? How many network engineers who understand and optimize the underlying TCP/IP protocol did you plan to hire?"

During peak hours, users on the West Coast are experiencing severe lag, making it impossible to even move their characters. Who are you planning to refund your monthly subscriptions to?

Several executives from independent game companies who had originally planned to enter the online gaming industry immediately tensed up.

Those who develop single-player games are skilled in graphics rendering, numerical balancing, and scriptwriting.

Frank pointed to the topological map behind him.

"As for data center expansion, global backbone node scheduling, underlying anti-cheating monitoring, and cross-border billing channels, these are the dirty and tiring tasks that you shouldn't be handling, and you can't handle them."

The large screen suddenly zoomed in, revealing a huge "Silicon Valley Online" logo in the center, below which were real-time online data curves for Battle.net and Dungeons & Dragons Online.

"Silicon Valley Online has deployed nodes in key global network hubs, running stress tests with millions of concurrent users on the Battle.net. Now, we're opening up this underlying framework. Small and medium-sized teams only need to call our SDK and connect the network module to our server cluster; Silicon Valley Online will handle all the remaining infrastructure operations and maintenance."

Frank walked back to the podium and pulled out the page turner.

"You guys are responsible for making the game fun, and we'll take care of making it accessible to players all over the world. It's that simple."

As soon as he finished speaking, Frank didn't even wait for the host to announce the program; he simply nodded to the audience, turned around, and left the stage.

The exit on the side of the conference hall was instantly blocked.

Before Frank could even step out of the connecting corridor, seven or eight middle-aged men wearing conference badges quickly surrounded him.

"Mr. Marshall, please wait two minutes!"

Leading the way was EA's Vice President in charge of network operations, who had already handed over a business card. "We're preparing a sports-themed online project for the second half of the year, and we're very interested in the throughput of your nodes in Chicago and Dallas. Could you arrange an on-site technical assessment in San Francisco next week?"

"No problem, contact my assistant Charles, he'll schedule it for you." Frank accepted the business card and handed back his own.

A Capcom overseas specialist squeezed forward and spoke in slightly broken English: "President Marshall, our arcade porting team would like to know, if we use your SDK, how many milliseconds can the latency from Japan to North America be reduced to?"

"As long as the Pacific Ocean submarine fiber optic cable doesn't malfunction, our proprietary routing optimization can save you at least 30% of the routing jump nodes." Frank didn't stop walking; his assistant quickly handed the technical white paper to the executives of the several manufacturers who had gathered around.

In the smoking room at the corner of the corridor, several senior journalists from Net Generation and Edge were leaning against the glass window, puffing away.

The ashtray was covered with a thick layer of cigarette ash.

"Sega's double act at this closed-door summit was quite interesting." A slightly overweight United Kingdom journalist exhaled a smoke ring and flicked his cigarette ash.

The colleague next to me took a sip of his cold coffee from his paper cup. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you see? Hattori played the bad cop on stage, giving a thorough dressing-down to those who wanted to make a quick buck off game merchandise and run away. He clearly told the industry: if you want to make money from derivative products, you need a solid foundation and to honestly focus on making good products."

The slightly overweight reporter smiled and pointed to Frank, who was surrounded by a huge crowd next door.

"Then, just three days later, Frank from Silicon Valley Online took the stage as the 'bad cop.' He said, 'It's okay if you can't handle single-player games anymore, come and make online games. I've even prepared the server and network service interfaces for you.' This wasn't an exchange of experiences; it was Sega setting an invisible benchmark for future competitors."

"But you have to admit, what Frank has is indeed a necessity." His colleague crumpled the empty paper cup and threw it in the trash. "Right now, everyone's obsessed with 3D graphics, development costs are skyrocketing, and many companies are looking to shift their focus to more sustainable businesses like online games. Frank's focus on Battle.net's stability is incredibly tempting for those smaller, second-tier companies."

"Sega Galaxy has served as a warning in the physical merchandise sector with the quality of its games, while Sega Galaxy Silicon Valley Online has established a strong reputation for its online gaming services."

The slightly overweight reporter shook his head and stubbed out his cigarette in the metal tray.

"No matter how many PlayStation demo stations Sony sets up in the exhibition hall, they can only compete for polygons in front of the TV."

Sega's two-pronged approach has already extended its reach into the next stage of the industry's structure. It remains to be seen how Sony will challenge Sega with its next-generation console.

By the first week of June, all the booths at the Georgia World Congress Center had already been dismantled.

But for gamers across the United States, the aftershocks of this event are only just beginning to spread.

In front of a newsstand on Fourth Street in San Francisco, a delivery truck unloads neatly bundled packages.

The kraft paper was quickly cut open, revealing a thick stack of GamePro and EGM special Electronic Gaming Monthly that still smelled of ink.

The top of the cover features a large, bright red headline: "The Inaugural Game Critics Awards"

The official awards list has been announced.

Two young men carrying backpacks squeezed to the counter. The taller one pulled out a five- US dollar bill and quickly grabbed the top copy of "GamePro".

The two returned to their apartment, tossed their backpacks onto the sofa, and immediately started flipping through magazines.

The color-printed special edition was cut out into four double-page spreads, with the joint logos of more than thirty mainstream European and American game media outlets placed at the top.

"Let's find the best action game." His companion leaned over and reached out to hold down the pages that were being blown by the wind.

"Found it, it's here." The tall man pointed to the bold text on the third page.

Half-Life's name has been linked to two major awards.

Best action game, and best PC game.

"The media reviews are all lengthy and voluminous," the tall man read aloud an excerpt from a magazine. "Valve broke industry norms with their amazing live demo. They didn't use jarring cutscenes to interrupt gameplay; instead, they let the story unfold naturally through first-person interaction. Compared to Half-Life, those shooters that just have to search for colored keys to open doors are outdated. No wonder there are always long lines in front of the Sierra booth. My brother went on a business trip to Atlanta and came back saying that it was impossible to even get into the demo units at the Black Mesa."

The companion's gaze fell on a column to the side.

"Homeworld is the most promising new game? It even won Best Real-Time Strategy."

"The judges all voted for Relic's fully three-dimensional coordinate system." The tall man continued reading, "No longer confined to a two-dimensional sandbox, it's a true deep-space mothership battle. Just looking at the mining beams from the mining ships in the screenshots is far more impressive than the traditional God's-eye view."

The magazine pages continued to turn.

The best adventure puzzle was awarded to LucasArts's "Grim Fandango," which was described as an artwork that combines dark humor, Day of the Dead legends, and cinematic lighting.

"Best role-playing game is Baldur's Gate, a collaboration between Black Isle Studios and BioWare."

"There's also turn-based strategy, with Sid Meier's * Alpha Centauri * taking first place. The simulation category is divided into two: combat simulation is Jane's Defence- licensed * Jane's Combat Simulations: Fighters Anthology *, and non-combat simulation was given to Gatheringof..."

Railroad Tycoon II, published by Developers.

My companion tapped the hardware section at the bottom of the page. "The most promising new peripheral isn't Diamond Multimedia's sound card, it's Microsoft's tilt-sensitive controller."

"The Sidewinder Freestyle Pro has a built-in gravity sensor, so you can raise the nose of the plane simply by shaking your wrist while playing flight simulators. The on-site experience was indeed quite impressive." The tall man closed half of the magazine, his gaze drawn to the flipped-up main unit section.

His fingertip hovered over the section for best console games.

In the exhibition hall besieged by Sony and Nintendo, the plaque that won this grand prize bore Sega's red and blue logo.

Best console game: Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Sega.

The judges' official comments were prominently displayed in a single column. "They have almost created a Jurassic Park that truly exists in the game world," immersing players in thrilling action and intellectual battles, even making them eagerly anticipate the next showdown with the dinosaurs.

The tall guy whistled and pushed the magazine forward. "See? Before, a bunch of people on the BBS were guessing that Nintendo's Ocarina of Time or Sony's Tomb Raider III would win awards, but Sega beat them all."

"That Universal Pictures movie has been on VHS for over six months, how could the game have turned the tables?" His companion asked incredulously.

"Didn't you see the pre-show report?" The tall guy tapped the paper. "Sega didn't follow the movie formula at all, making a reskinned fast food game. The demo relied entirely on common sense for props, using raw meat with tranquilizer darts, connecting wires to car batteries to electrify dinosaurs, and the Velociraptors would even flank you based on sound and flashes of light. The judges were very blunt; this isn't some popcorn beat-'em-up game, it forces players to use their brains to survive on a deserted island."

This list is being reported not only by print newspapers.

Within half an hour of its release, this list became the hottest topic in various forums and Battle.net chat rooms on Silicon Valley Online.

The pinned posts in various forums have been refreshed with thousands of comments.

"Namco's Tekken 3 won without a doubt; its 3D side-step dodging has raised the bar for side-scrolling fighting games significantly."

"The racing game went to EA's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, whose police car chase mode was incredibly immersive. EA also won Best Sports Game, and they even had two real police cars displayed outside their booth this year, so they snatched Madden NFL 99 Best Booth Award as well."

"The mini-game was given to ' Return of the Guardians,' a very niche game that only managed to get selected thanks to the professional votes of thirty judges."

"The best online game is EverQuest, developed by Sony's 989 Studios. I heard it also has a large 3D map. It seems Frank was right at the closed-door summit; all the big companies are eyeing this lucrative online game market."

"Stop talking about those untested online games, hurry up and check when Jurassic Park 2 will be available at Best Buy. Once it's touted as the best console game, it'll probably be sold out before it even hits the shelves."

"I just asked in the ICQ group, and the software store in the city center that ordered 500 pre-order bonus items now only has less than 50 vouchers left."

Upon seeing the post on his computer, the tall man immediately tossed his GamePro onto the sofa, grabbed his car keys, and headed out the door.

"You just got back and you're going out again?" your companion asked, puzzled.

"Go to the software retail store next to the gas station. If you go too late, you won't even be able to get a first-release CD for next month."