The Legendary Game (3)
Not long after making Tetrix, I once put on a light disguise and went to a tavern in the city.
“Why are you going to a place like this? Someone of your standing could easily visit the high-class salons frequented by nobles.”
“Because I want to see how people are reacting to the Tetrix I just made.”
I'd heard rumors that people often played Tetrix on the streets and in taverns.
But I hadn't actually seen much of it myself.
I'd seen employees in the Development Department playing it all over the place, but I was curious how ordinary commoners felt about it.
“By the way, you don't really need to come with me too, Selen.”
“My duty is to ensure your safety. Taverns crowded with rough commoners can be dangerous, so it would be better for me to accompany you.”
As a mage, I could defend myself reasonably well, but Selen wasn't entirely wrong, so I decided to let her come along.
***
After walking through the streets for a while, we entered a tavern that looked suitable.
Just as I'd hoped, it was packed with people who appeared to be commoners.
“What'll you have?”
“Ah, one beer for me. Selen, what about you?”
“I……”
Selen looked slightly flustered, as though she'd never been somewhere like this before.
Since she'd come to work as my bodyguard, I'd wondered if she might have been born a commoner, but was she actually a noble?
Then again, she looked refined enough that it was hard to imagine her being a commoner.
“Do you have anything mild sweetened with honey? Give her that. Oh, and a plate of Schweinshaxe too.”
“Yes, my lord. I will have it ready at once.”
I handed the tavern owner a gold coin that included a tip, and he grinned, showing his yellow teeth. A short while later, he brought us drinks along with a generous helping of food.
“You seem familiar with places like this.”
“I was born a commoner. It hasn't even been that long since I received the title of baron. Come to think of it… I never heard what family you're from. You're not from some house where I shouldn't be speaking so casually to you, are you?”
“N-No. It is nothing like that…….”
Selen became visibly flustered.
She's bad at lying……
Looks like she really is the daughter of some distinguished family.
I had no idea why a woman from a family like that was working as my bodyguard, but I decided to pretend I hadn't noticed.
“Ah, they're playing Tetrix over there.”
Then I heard a noisy commotion from one side of the tavern.
When I looked over, a crowd had gathered around someone playing Tetrix.
“Hey, hey! Don't complete the line there. You need to stack them first.”
“You get more points for a multi-stage combo.”
“Shut up, you bastards. If you've got a problem with it, buy one and play yourselves!”
“Whatever. Lend it to me too. I want to try.”
People crowded together watching one or two players play Tetrix.
And they weren't merely watching.
They were passing the Tetrix console around and taking turns playing it themselves.
I could see the same thing happening in several places.
“As expected, people seem to like this game very much as well.”
“Yeah, looks like it. But it's still a little disappointing…….”
“Pardon? Why?”
“Look closely. Everyone likes it, but there aren't actually that many people who own Tetrix themselves.”
“Ah……”
I'd made it as cheaply as possible, so commoners with some money to spare tended to buy one each.
But commoners poor enough to frequent a shabby tavern like this probably couldn't afford one.
No, calling them ‘poor’ was misleading.
People like these were probably the majority.
The Empire's economy had recently developed in many ways, but it was still far from a modern society, and very few commoners had much disposable income.
The moment you left the cities, there were still plenty of people living as serfs.
Even if a cheap and entertaining game existed, people's purchasing power still couldn't keep up.
“It's a shame. I'd like more people to be able to enjoy games without worrying so much about money.”
It would be difficult to lower the price of the game console any further.
And even if I did, most people would probably still end up borrowing games from one another like this.
Until the Empire's economy fundamentally developed enough to give people greater financial freedom, one game console per person was still a distant dream.
If this were at least a world with computers, I could make a PC café or something, but the game consoles I'd created weren't computers.
They were more like old Nintendo Game Boys.
Naturally, there was no way to make a PC café with something like that……
“…Wait. Is it really impossible?”
“What do you mean?”
“No, I mean… what about a business where people pay money to borrow a game console? Doesn't that sound workable?”
“Game consoles? Would it not be troublesome if someone borrowed one and stole it?”
“No, obviously we wouldn't let them take it away. We install the game consoles in places like this tavern, and when someone pays one copper coin, they get to play one game. If we do it that way, there's no need to force ourselves to make the consoles small and cheap either.”
The idea I'd just come up with was an ‘arcade.’
Come to think of it, before PCs became widespread, arcades had served a similar role to PC cafés.
PC cafés themselves only appeared after PC games began replacing arcade games.
I also had some childhood memories of visiting arcades, but I belonged to a generation that experienced most games through PCs, so I'd overlooked them.
“Indeed… That sounds feasible. Commoners with little purchasing power would certainly prefer it, while those who can afford a game would simply buy one themselves.”
“Hmm. Actually, people with plenty of purchasing power will probably visit the ‘arcade’ too.”
“Will they? I find that difficult to imagine. A place crowded with people would be noisy and uncomfortable…….”
I only smiled quietly at Selen's words.
The arcades I remembered had always been packed with people.
They eventually declined once PCs and the internet became widespread, but arcades possessed charms that playing at home simply couldn't provide.
“Anyway, it'd be nice if I could build an arcade…….”
The problem was the variety of games.
Other than ‘Tetrix,’ the games I'd made weren't particularly suitable for an arcade.
‘Civilization Development,’ ‘Honorlord,’ ‘Age of Great Voyages,’ and ‘Witch Hunter’ were all games that required several hours—or even an entire day or two—once you started playing them.
They weren't suited for arcade games, where turnover was important.
But filling an entire arcade with nothing but Tetrix didn't feel right either.
While I was wondering whether I'd have to hastily make some arcade games myself, news arrived that Valentia had created several new games.
Those ‘retro games’ from before.
“They made games like these just from seeing Tetrix. People in this world really do have the ability to make good games.”
Of course, calling them ‘retro’ games was technically incorrect.
Retro meant old-fashioned or nostalgic, after all.
But perhaps I could call them ‘arcade games.’
If I built an arcade using them, that was.
The word ‘arcade’ referred to things stretching out side by side in a row.
Put simply, you could imagine the sight of game machines lined up one after another inside an arcade.
Once I built a place like that, ‘arcade games’ would finally exist in this world too.
And I intended to build that arcade.
“Selen, I want to buy the sales rights to all of these games.”
“Yes. I will make a formal request to the Kingdom of Valentia.”
Copyright was still a vague concept in this world, but I decided to purchase the rights properly.
I justified plagiarizing games from Earth with the logic that Earth's copyright holders couldn't come after me here, but I didn't want to do the same thing to games that people in this world had created with their own hands.
Of course……
They'd copied my games first.
But I wasn't really in a position to complain about that.
It would be ridiculous for the first plagiarist to complain because someone else plagiarized his plagiarism.
In any case, I decided to buy the rights myself as a way of encouraging my successors.
Surprisingly, the emperor readily agreed.
“In exchange for purchasing the rights, I also told them to stop copying your games without permission. The prideful King of Valentia gladly agreed. This should make it easier to export your games there as well.”
The emperor had somehow managed to squeeze another benefit out of the deal.
Now that Valentia would stop copying my games, exporting them there would become much easier.
Which meant I could build arcades in Valentia too.
So I decided, what the hell, I'd build arcades not only in the Empire but in Valentia as well.
Building an arcade itself wasn't particularly difficult.
All I needed to do was create game machines and games where ‘inserting a coin allowed you to play one game.’
Tetrix and all the retro games made in Valentia could be adapted to work that way.
If anything, I deliberately designed the arcade cabinets to be bulky and large.
Large enough for exactly two people to sit in front of them.
“Why are you making them like that?”
“Arcade cabinets are supposed to be two-player. That's just the rule.”
“The rule……?”
Watching people play Tetrix, I'd often seen them compete over who could achieve the higher score.
That naturally reminded me that many arcade games were designed for two players to compete against each other.
Of course, there were plenty of cooperative games too……
But most of the truly popular ones were competitive rather than cooperative.
Tetrix itself was mostly a game where people competed over scores or tried to see who could survive the longest without reaching ‘Game Over.’
Cooperative games couldn't be ignored either, but even if I didn't make any myself, someone would probably develop them eventually.
I'd leave that to my successors.
***
Not long afterward, the first arcades opened in the Empire and Valentia.
“There really are a lot of people here. I can even see nobles over there.”
“Looks like curiosity brought them in. Ah, those two are competing against each other in Tetrix.”
There were several kinds of games, but Tetrix was still the most popular.
Insert one copper coin, and you could keep playing until you reached Game Over.
Of course, the difficulty increased exponentially as you advanced through the stages, so reaching the final stage on a single copper coin wasn't easy.
And if a ‘challenger’ appeared, the two players were required to face each other.
They had to survive on a stage that grew faster and faster until their opponent reached Game Over first.
Some versions with special rules even allowed the players to attack each other.
“Oh my, Lord Baron! Looks like I won this round!”
“Ghk, you're quite skilled! I'll buy you a drink, so face me one more time! Surely you aren't going to run away?”
“Ha ha! Then I'll take that drink and keep going!”
I even saw an amateur noble who had come to watch challenging a commoner expert at Tetrix.
The commoner expert was deliberately losing just enough to get various treats out of him, while the amateur noble occasionally achieved a dramatic victory and basked in the satisfaction of defeating a commoner.
It felt like watching a round of golf where someone deliberately let the client win.
I wasn't sure whether this, too, should be called the power of games.
“Somehow… it is a pleasant sight. But there is something I do not quite understand. Is there really a need for them to compete against each other? They could simply play separately on different machines.”
“That's part of what makes games fun, Selen. Whether it's scores or something else, people want to compete with other people. They want to prove they're better than their opponent.”
That instinct existed regardless of social class.
Maybe social classes themselves had arisen because of instincts like that.
“Which is why… this still isn't enough.”
“Not enough? You mean this arcade?”
“Yeah. The most important games are still missing.”
A game capable of satisfying people's competitive instincts, fighting spirit, and desire for victory.
“We need fighting games.”