Rebirth 86: I use games to kick open the door to the world

In the morning, the tellers in the video game store organize the shelves as usual. They only do so many things every day. Unless there are some popular games ready to be released, they will be busier.

Now is the most leisurely moment during this period.

yawn.

It is estimated that not many people will come today. After all, all the good games have been sold out. The next popular game should be the new IP game called Metroid. The product produced by NGS must be a high-quality product.

The teller packed up the shelves and prepared to be confused for a while with nothing to do.

But just then the doorbell rang.

"Hello, welcome." The teller replied subconsciously and turned to look at the door.

That was a lady, probably a housewife.

"Hello, I want to buy a game called Contra, have you heard of it?"

"Contra? Sorry, this game is no longer sold."

"Oh, that's a pity. Then I'll go check out other homes."

The housewife didn't linger too long and quickly left the video game store.

This housewife didn't know anything about video games. She bought them because her children wanted them so much.

"Contra, it sounds like a good game, but it's a pity that the production volume of cartridges for this game is not large."

The teller couldn't help but shook his head.

He saw BEEP's latest article yesterday. This article did not review Contra this time. The previous article had clearly written many interesting things about Contra.

BEEP mentioned Contra again this time because it wanted to explain the reason why Contra's sales have not been high recently.

After BEEP's investigation, we finally learned that NGS seems to have limited the production volume of Contra cartridges, and only gave a quota of 300,000.

In this regard, magazine editor Kenji Ozawa expressed his dissatisfaction with NGS.

NGS seems to be gradually becoming overbearing, forcibly controlling the production volume of cassettes, and deliberately creating a false scene of prosperity and scarcity, which is very detrimental to players.

However, BEEP is only here to stay, and they don't dare to make NGS anxious. After all, they will still have to rely on NGS's advertising fees in the future.

If you offend NGS and refuse to advertise for yourself, and switch to another magazine, you are not adding competitors to yourself.

His words were restrained, but those who read the magazine were not satisfied.

Most players who read the contents of the magazine only had one idea after reading the article.

NGS, please increase the production of Contra for me!

It's just... In this era, there aren't many channels for ordinary customers to speak out, unless a group of people rush to the NGS building to protest, but obviously not many people are free to panic and do such a thing.

But there is another channel, which is to search crazy video game stores to inquire about Contra cassettes.

A few minutes later, another young man entered the video game store.

"Hi, are there any Contra cassettes for sale here?"

The teller didn't even have time to say welcome, the young man who came in directly stated his needs.

"Uh, sorry, this game sold out a week ago."

"What? How come it's sold out? There are more than 300,000 cassettes, isn't it?"

"This...this cassette is also the largest cassette production volume in the world. Our store has only allocated two hundred boxes of Contra cassettes so far, and they were all sold out in one week."

The young man glared, and then said helplessly: "Well, damn it, I thought I could find Contra when I came to a big city."

When the teller heard this, his heart moved: "Sir, it sounds like you don't have it anywhere else?"

"Oh, yes."

"Is this game so popular? Obviously not many people bought it before, but it took more than 20 days to barely sell out all 200 boxes of Contra."

"I don't know if it's popular or not. I just know that this game is very fun. I couldn't forget it after I played it at my friend's place. Now I just want to play it when I get home."

"Then I'm sorry, we really have sold out."

The young man turned around and left decisively, but after a few minutes, two or three people came directly this time.

And they all have the same purpose.

I want to buy Contra.

"Did you also read the review article of Contra?"

"What review article?"

"Huh? Don't you read review articles?"

"No, my brother asked me to buy it. Why don't you even have the game you want here?"

Teller: ...

It’s not that we don’t want to sell it, it’s really not that we don’t want to sell it!

Next, on average, a few people would come in every few minutes, and for every twenty people, only one or two would ask about other games.

And those people who asked about other games saw that many people were asking about Contra. They were also curious about this game and wanted to try it out.

Slowly passed from one to another, this game seems to be spreading.

The tellers saw this in their eyes, and every time they came, they could only say helplessly that Contra was gone, and you could play other games.

However, these people did not pay much attention to the teller's advice.

The owner of the video game store is worried. So many people want this game. Doesn’t that mean that as long as this game is available, there will be profits?

"Hey, Miyazaki-san, I am the owner of Kaga Video Game Store. I would like to ask if you have a source of Contra over there?"

"Oh no, where can I find it?"

"None? Why not?"

"Only 300,000 boxes were produced in total? And these 300,000 boxes have been sold and are no longer produced?"

"You can't do this. Can't you make this money by standing still? Hurry up and produce quickly."

"You said you have other cassette production plans? You damn sent me a hundred boxes of shogi cassettes yesterday. The hundred boxes three months ago have not been sold half yet, so you can't put this Partially transferred to Contra?"

"I don't care, we need Contra!"

The owner of the video game store felt extremely distressed when he saw that all the money he had received was gone because there was no Contra.

If I can get this game, I can make a million yen in one day!

Damn it, what are these NGS bastards doing?

The NGS cassette production department liaison officer hung up the phone with a confused look on his face.

This was already the seventh phone call he had received from a video game store owner who was yelling at him.

Did these guys take any medicine today?

Why are everyone so angry?

Isn't it just that the production volume of a game is not enough? It has not happened before.

This kind of thing is not something they can control, it's the production plan and arrangement given by their boss, so it's not their fault.

But as long as they are front-line personnel, one of their responsibilities is to be ready to be scolded at any time.

They had no choice but to tell these video game store owners that they would submit their opinions to the superiors as soon as possible, but the specific details still had to be decided by the superiors.

How did this game become so popular? There is obviously no company name. When they first produced it, all I saw was a game that seemed to be made by one person.

At that time, they still laughed at the sales volume of a game made by one person.