This Pokeni community actually has strategic significance.
Don't underestimate the fact that it only has text functionality for now. As long as it develops for a period of time, it will become a gathering place for gamers in Japan.
According to Aoki Haruhi's idea, although the Pokeni community is mainly serving his own company now, the framework has already been set. In the future, whether it's expanding it, making it an official website, or turning it into other types of sharing sites, it will be a very swift process.
In this way, it's equivalent to owning a very important media platform. In the future, it will be very convenient to promote or advertise anything on it.
Moreover, once the topic heats up, it can further increase the popularity of Pokeni.
At this point, it was no longer just a forum.
It was the opening shot for the future of digital news media, though it would still take some time to grow and develop.
Moreover, Aoki Haruhi felt that the usual method of having operations staff go out to the streets to survey players was too inefficient.
While face-to-face interviews allowed for more direct observation of players' facial expressions, the process was quite cumbersome, and the scale was generally small.
Even from a statistical perspective, the sample size of such spot checks was too low.
But a forum is different. Once players got accustomed to posting comments in the Pokeni Community, the user base would gradually grow, allowing you to quickly and intuitively see players' feedback on games, and thereby understand what they liked and what they disliked.
This would actually be very helpful for future game development.
And one more thing, which could be considered Aoki Haruhi's own selfish motive:
He wanted to see firsthand how players were praising him.
In the past, to interact with players offline, you had to host player meetups, which was honestly quite exhausting. It was like winning an Olympic gold medal but not hearing anyone's applause. Only the media would report on it a little; if you wanted to hear the cheers of the grassroots, you had to go down and get among them to find out.
That kind of approach is out of touch with the times. The internet era is an era of information explosion, an era of rapidly spreading emotional value. In such an era, it would be a huge pity not to have a Pokeni Community where you can see players' comments and receive their praise.
Furthermore, for Aoki Haruhi from his past life, being able to see interesting comments on forums, Steam community boards, or even under related videos on Bilibili, and engaging in discussions with them, was a genuine joy. Without comments, it feels like a lot of the fun is missing later on. Sometimes, netizens' hilarious comments are even more engaging than the games themselves. The reason barrage comments (danmu) became popular is that the comments themselves are very interesting.
***
To savor this moment, Aoki Haruhi even went out of his way to write a post on the Pokeni community forum, written in his capacity as president.
The gist of it was to thank the players for their long-standing companionship and support.
[I trust that as you've accompanied Pokeni through its growth, you've also experienced many of our games.]
[Although these games are lives of our own creation, they only become complete because of you.]
[Every player must have experienced a different kind of life within Pokeni's games.]
[All the joys and sorrows, all the ups and downs—they must be hard to forget, right?]
[Since that's the case, why not leave your mark here? Write down your gaming stories so we can share them together and progress together.]
[Thank you for being with us, Pokeni Official.]
Aoki didn't have the nerve to sign his own name; he felt it was a bit too flashy.
He preferred a more low-key, subtle way of showing off.
Then, he would wait for the players' praise, chuckling to himself in private.
After registering on the forum and creating dedicated sub-forums for each of Pokeni's games, Aoki leaked this news to Gorotsu and other news outlets, hoping to generate a wave of publicity.
Of course, it was a paid arrangement.
***
In the latest issue of the Gorotsu journal, the following news was published:
"With the development of personal computers, the internet is gradually becoming popular around the world. People can communicate, share, and obtain information on the web. The internet may well become a very important development trend for the future. Last year, domestic operators began providing dial-up internet access, and the number of computers purchased is growing exponentially. It is estimated that within the next ten years, computers will become a household necessity.
On the personal computer front, quite a few excellent game titles were also born this year.
The Elder Scrolls: Arena is a role-playing game developed and published by Bethesda Softworks, released in March of this year. Emperor Uriel Septim VII has been betrayed by the Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn and imprisoned in another dimension. You must travel alone across the vast continent of Tamriel, searching for the legendary Staff of Chaos to rescue the true Emperor and restore peace to the Empire. The game itself has high playability and is full of exploration elements; it is a truly rare masterpiece of a game."
"Warcraft: Orcs & Humans": A LAN real-time strategy game where players can experience a single-player campaign to learn basic game controls, or battle other players through a local area network.
The gameplay difficulty is quite high, as you need to manage multiple unit types simultaneously. However, the world-building is vast, the content is rich, and it possesses a very strong, imaginative Western fantasy atmosphere..."
After introducing the development of the world wide web and electronic computers, as well as the changes brought about by computer games, Gorotsu specifically wrote about the Pokeni community.
"Pokeni has launched the first domestic forum community. Players who are interested in Pokeni's games or want to share their thoughts and critiques about their work can leave comments on this forum.
President Aoki Haruhi stated that the relevant developers will carefully read everyone's feedback and strive to make future games even better.
At the same time, you can also write down your own gaming experiences in the forum and share them with other players.
Isn't that interesting?"
Following this, the introduction from the forum's homepage was quoted.
The forum address was provided at the end.
***
You must travel alone across the vast continent of Tamriel, seeking the legendary Staff of Chaos to rescue the true Emperor and restore peace to the Empire.
The game itself has high replayability and is full of exploration elements, making it a truly rare and exceptional masterpiece.
***
"Huh?
Personal computers?"
"There are games on PCs too."
"Yeah, it seems like there have been computer games for a long time, just not very popular over here."
***
"Huh? A personal computer?"
"There are games on PCs too, you know."
"Yeah, it seems there have been computer games for a long time, just not very popular around here."
"Computers are so expensive, just think about it—a high-end computer would cost at least 500,000 yen, right?"
"Yeah, totally unaffordable."
"The company has computers and provided us with them, but we have to return them after use, let alone installing games on them."
"Buying one for myself would be way too painful on the wallet."
With many office workers earning only around 200,000 yen a month, spending 500,000 on a computer is indeed a bit extravagant.
By comparison, game consoles are clearly much cheaper.
The Sega MD is only 29,800, and it's said that Sony will launch an even more powerful game console this year, with a price tag unlikely to exceed 50,000 yen.
"What's more, the performance on game consoles is better than computers, so I wouldn't even think about playing computer games."
"Unless some must-play masterpiece comes out."
"These two games look pretty interesting, but I really don't like the art style. I guess domestic players wouldn't easily accept them, right?"
"And I've taken a look, the games on PC are actually quite crude, they don't have graphics as good as today's game consoles."
"..."
The players discussed it one after another.
But what they were stating was, in fact, a fact.
Because PC gaming wouldn't really develop until after the year 2000. In the 90s, computers were used more as tools for office work. It was just that as more people owned them, everyone started feeling it would be nice if this thing could not only handle office work but also play some games in their spare time.
In such a market environment, more and more game developers got involved, which in turn pushed the development of computer hardware, such as graphics cards, sound cards, and memory, and that led to the subsequent boom in computer gaming.
But right now, Japanese players are actually still more accustomed to playing games on consoles.
While the players who bought the Gorotsu were criticizing the PC games, they also saw the advertisement for Pokeni's GG published below.
"Pokeni Community? What the heck is this?"
"I don't get it."
"Dial-up internet—you have to do it on a computer."
"Ah~ that's such a hassle. What's the point of it?"
"I'm not really sure either."
"Looking at the introduction, it seems like you can write down your gaming experiences and share them in this community. Anyone else who logs into the Pokeni Community can see what you've written."
"Huh? Really? But why would I want to write things down and share them with others?"
"Who knows? Isn't talking about gaming experiences face-to-face much more interesting? Especially with fellow enthusiasts, you can grab a drink at an izakaya in the evening, chat about games, talk about interesting things that happened recently—it's truly pleasant and enjoyable."
"Pokeni's President really just comes up with one crazy idea after another. Why doesn't he spend that time actually developing games?"
"Exactly. It's hard for someone who lacks focus to succeed."
"It's all because Pokeni's producers are too talented that they've given this useless president so much free rein."
***
Players who bought "Golu-Tong" were commenting on computer games while also seeing the Pokeni ad printed below.
"Pokeni Community?
What on earth is this thing?"
Qing Zhiyuan, of course, had no idea about these players' complaints offline, but as time passed, media outlets and newspapers also published Pokeni Community ads, even though nearly...
***
Of course, Aoki Haruhi could not possibly know about the players' complaints offline. However, as time went by, even though the media and newspapers had published advertisements for the Pokeni Community, nearly a week had passed, and there was still not a single post from any players on the forum.
Not to mention any in-depth content sharing.
This situation was completely deviating from Aoki Haruhi's understanding and expectations.
According to his thinking, while not that many people in Japan owned personal computers, there should at least be a few wealthy, die-hard fans, right?
He stared at his computer every day, hoping someone would leave a comment, but there was nothing—not a single one.
At the very least, no one had left a comment or shared anything on the forum.
"Ah~ how could it be like this?"
Aoki Haruhi felt incredibly distressed.
It shouldn't be like this.
Aoki fell into deep self-doubt and despair, his expression dejected.
Or perhaps he should wait a bit longer? After all, the internet was still too new for players at this time; they needed a process to accept and adapt to it?
Just then, a post suddenly appeared on the forum.
Aoki immediately sat up from his chair, and then excitedly clicked to open its contents.
Please Support me by becoming my Patreon member and get 20+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon