Chương 153: The television station in a dilemma
"Frankly speaking, I'm very disappointed. Originally, I was also a loyal baseball fan, and I'm truly disappointed by the behavior of these athletes."
On Tokyo TV, an expert from a certain university expressed regret.
"Professor, do you think the baseball league will be affected by this?"
"Well... I don't think so. Baseball is ultimately the favorite sport in the hearts of the people. The real problem lies with those athletes only. We shouldn't generalize to the entire baseball community. Not all athletes are bad; it's just a few of them."
"That's true. It's only a few athletes who are really bad."
"Speaking of which, have you played the recent game 'Super Baseball Blood League' which is currently under scrutiny?"
"Of course, it's really fun. It's just unfortunate that it has been under attack before, which overshadowed the highlights of the game." The host said with regret.
"Now that you mention it, I suddenly remember those athletes who criticized the game before. It seems like they are not so clean themselves."
The host also seemed to realize, and exclaimed, "Yeah, it does seem like that. Those people were saying the game lacked professionalism and realism, but now I feel like there's something even more real in the game."
The professor nodded with a smile, "Exactly. This speaks to the creator of the game, Mr. Takayuki, the president of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment. I used to have some prejudices against electronic games, but now I suddenly realize that he is a person very sensitive to social issues. Through his game, he criticizes the current social situation, showing a great sense of social responsibility."
"Indeed, there is a lot to be learned from this game. I used to just see it as an interesting game."
On the television screen, the professor and the host were in sync, with seamless cooperation.
Takayuki watched in amazement.
"Am I really that amazing? I didn't even realize it myself."
Before, he had simply wanted to take a different approach with this game, without thinking much about it.
But being described like this by the professor and the host, it seemed like he had immediately become a national teacher, actively exposing the dark side of society.
In movies and TV shows, criticism of social phenomena is common.
But in electronic games, it's not particularly obvious.
Electronic games tend to be more commercialized than movies and TV shows, serving purely for entertainment purposes.
Of course, there are some games that allude to social issues.
For example, 'This Is My War,' which depicts the lives of ordinary people during wartime, bringing attention to the lives of civilians on the battlefield.
And then there's 'World War of Brave Hearts,' describing the lack of choice for civilians during World War I.
But this isn't the original purpose of electronic games; it's just a supplement within electronic games.
However, this could indeed be a good breakthrough.
It could be a starting point for the water army to work from. And, by the way, give those TV stations a good lesson.
...
Atsue Kuree, the director of Asahi TV, had only been in office for a year.
He had just taken office not long ago and was preparing to make a big splash, to make a name for himself in the television industry and lead the TV station to prosperity.
However, he happened to catch the end of the television era.
The internet, electronic games.
Under the double pressure of these two fields, the TV station was getting worse day by day, and the ratings seemed to drop a little every day.
As the director, he felt quite aggrieved.
He had worked so hard to get to this position, but he couldn't produce any results. The performance was plummeting, and the associated TV stations were all complaining, blaming the big brother for not being competent.
In such a situation, he had considered launching some TV programs to reverse the decline.
But in the end, it was impossible to turn the tide.
In the end, he chose to use others as scapegoats.
The newly emerging industry of electronic games naturally became his target.
Coincidentally, several other TV stations had similar ideas. They joined forces to attack electronic games.
Whenever there was a chance, they would smear electronic games as much as possible. And when there was no chance, they would absolutely not provide any publicity channels for electronic games.
If electronic games were promoted through other channels, they would use their influence to suppress those advertising channels.
But in the end, only these four TV stations persisted.
Other channels succumbed to the onslaught of money.
Later, they had a good opportunity to attack electronic games, but it was unexpectedly destroyed by an exposure scandal. Kuree's position as director was barely maintained.
And then, recently, there was a second opportunity to attack electronic games.
However... this time, they weren't as lucky as before.
On the internet, a large number of users seemed to have emerged from nowhere, flooding screens everywhere with criticism.
"Trash TV stations, you're rotten to the core. You dare to defame electronic games? Clean up your own act first! Bastards!"
"Garbage TV stations, no wonder your shows are getting worse and worse. You're always engaging in underhanded tactics. Please just die quickly. I'll never watch your programs again!"
"I apologize to Gamestar Electronic Entertainment. The game you produced is really interesting. I spoke insincerely before. You're truly a responsible company, more so than those old companies. Please keep up the good work. I'll buy all your games for sure!"
This time, such messages were more numerous than ever before.
Not only on the internet, but also in their company mailboxes, they were flooded every day. There were thousands of letters from different places across the country every day.
The contents were mostly extremely critical, calling the TV stations garbage dumps and urging them to die as soon as possible.
Atsue Kuree, along with the directors of the other TV stations, were extremely angry but had nowhere to vent their frustrations.
Now, whenever their TV programs contained even a hint of criticism against electronic games, they would immediately face boycotts.
The ratings would plummet to ten percent.
This was already a dire situation.
On the other hand, NHK, as the big brother among the six TV stations, remained calm and collected. They even reaped the benefits of the situation, gaining two or three points in ratings for even their trash programs. It was very gratifying.
And Tokyo TV, which had directly embraced electronic games, had seen a significant rise in ratings. From an average viewership of less than fifteen percent, it had soared to an average viewership of about twenty percent.
Even if the viewers didn't want to watch anything, they would still choose Tokyo TV or NHK when turning on the TV. This was very frustrating for the four TV stations.
What was even more infuriating was that many of Tokyo TV's programs were subtly mocking the four TV stations, considering them a group of unsavory characters.
Are you clean?
Can you say you're clean? You're just not caught yet.
But Tokyo TV didn't care about them.
Anyway, those who exposed these things have nothing to do with me. I'm just riding the wave of popularity. Even if they want to retaliate, they can't target me first; they have to go after electronic games first.
But now, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had gained some prestige.
In just one year, according to the sales data disclosed by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, the Red and White machines had nearly four million users, and the SFC was approaching one million in sales.
With so many users under their control, they already had a certain dominance in the industry and couldn't be easily manipulated anymore.
Now, they were beginning to suffer backlash from those gamers.
Some of the more extreme gamers even stood in front of their TV stations with banners.
The content read: "Trash TV stations dare to smear electronic games? Please clean up your own mess first! Bastards!"
You wanted to drive these people away but didn't dare, afraid of triggering a more intense reaction.
Atsue Kuree knew this was probably related to Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, but there was no evidence. If they dared to expel them, it would show they were guilty, and for a while, they were really stuck in a dilemma.
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