NOVEL NEXT Chapter 53
The impact of this open commemorative broadcast was beyond my imagination.
Before the broadcast was released, the search volume on the portal sites more than doubled, and my name was mentioned even in game communities unrelated to our game.
Thanks to this impact, the number of advance reservations for *Reverse Arcadia* soared from around 700,000 before the broadcast to a million.
Considering that this was the first time a subculture mobile game had突破 a million advance reservations…
It definitely felt like all the hard work for the broadcast had paid off.
Thanks to the overwhelming number of advance reservations, the atmosphere in the office, which should have been tense, was instead completely peaceful.
Please, I hope the game continues without any major bugs flipping everything after launch…
***
One week after the launch of *Reverse Arcadia*.
Perhaps my prayers had reached the heavens. Unlike with *Girls’ Memorial*, no fatal bugs or accidents had occurred a week after the launch, which was fortunate.
On the other hand, the game’s reception was getting better day by day.
Unlike *Girls’ Memorial*, whose previous life as a gacha game led to subtle reactions to the in-game content, *Reverse Arcadia* was receiving praise for its in-game content.
To the extent that it was said to have broken the limits of the rarely seen Tower Defense genre.
Not only that, but the art aspect wasn’t poorly reviewed either, with the main characters’ character designs receiving excellent reviews.
Among them, the character who received the best reviews was undoubtedly Henrietta, whose ranking as the top submission on Bixiv at the time of the launch was still being maintained.
Building on this popularity, she was released as the first pickup character in *Reverse Arcadia*.
The result was no contest—achieving the number one revenue ranking on the App Store, allowing SignGames to reclaim the throne.
Of course, since character growth was made possible with in-game items, there wasn’t a significant difference in actual revenue compared to the second-ranked *Grand Arc Fantasy*.
Letting out a faint sigh of regret while preparing a report for Su-yeon, the phone rang.
Checking who it was, it was Tanaka.
‘I wonder what’s up?’
“Hello?”
[Department Head, are you available to talk right now?]
“Of course. Go ahead.”
[There seems to be a problem over at SignGames, so I’m contacting you. I’ll send you a link, so please check it out.]
“Ahhh, yes. Please send it right away.”
Not long after I disconnected the call with Tanaka, a link was sent.
‘At this point, the only problem that could arise from SignGames would be the probability manipulation… Has the gacha probability controversy already broken out?’
I half-believed as I clicked the link and was presented with a familiar bird-emblazoned SNS, the Bluebird screen.
Let’s see…
[@Nameless_F1]
[Screenshot of 2,600 consecutive gacha attempts results]
Guren… I spent 700,000 yen trusting in it, but I failed.
Is this really true? #ItsPan
[Replies: 322][Shared: 7.3K][Likes: 2K]
It’s happening.
In my previous life’s memories, *Grand Arc Fantasy* got entangled in a probability controversy a few months into next year, but
it seemed like this time the butterfly effect made it happen earlier.
I had a rough idea of why the butterfly effect had occurred.
While I was watching the Bluebird site with interest, Tanaka called me again.
[Have you checked it out?]
“Ah, yes. I’ve confirmed it. It seems like a gacha probability controversy has erupted… How is the current response in Japan?”
[So far, it is still at the level of public discourse and the pressure is not too strong, but the public sentiment is not good. SignGames’ image was already very bad due to their ruthless gacha system.]
“That means….”
[It will get worse. Definitely. There are more and more reports of failures, and as you know, SignGames is notoriously slow to respond.]
Indeed, SignGames was the one that delayed apologies and even rumors spread about them engaging in power struggles with users.
It seemed that, as Tanaka said, their response would probably be late again this time.
[That’s why I’m asking, Department Head… There are no problems on our side, right?]
“Of course not. We correctly apply the probability as stated in our notices for every gacha draw of the two games, and in the case of *Reverse Arcadia*, we even have a hidden ceiling system, so there’s no way we’ll get attacked.]
[Understood. We will continue to monitor the public sentiment in Japan, so please keep an eye on the sentiment in Korea. Thank you.]
“Understood.”
After hanging up the call with Tanaka, I slouched in my chair and thought.
‘Things are getting interesting.’
Base on my previous life’s memories, I did not expect to use my secret ace, which was planted in *Reverse Arcadia* to sink SignGames, so early.
That secret ace was the ceiling system.
In my previous life, the ceiling system SignGames introduced to resolve this crisis and pacify the users was this one.
However, what if we at our company were to introduce this ceiling system first?
What if this ceiling system, unlike the public style used in *Girls’ Memorial*, was secretly embedded as a hidden ceiling?
With our company already having a world of difference in image compared to SignGames, it was clear which side the users would support.
Of course, considering SignGames eventually received a not-guilty verdict in my previous life, the situation probably won’t last long,
but I started to become curious about how trapped SignGames would respond.
***
As I had promised Tanaka, I spent a few days lurking on Korean communities, but there were not many specific leads yet.
*Grand Arc Fantasy* was still a minor game in Korea, so it was understandable that few people kept up with the Japanese local reactions.
On the 5th day of sporadically keeping an eye on things during work,
finally, posts in Korea about the gacha probability manipulation controversy started to surface.
According to Tanaka, Japan had already lost control of the situation, and Korea would soon catch up, and his words had become true.
[Nickname: Unknown]
[Title: Is this true? Japan’s gacha probability manipulation controversy has erupted]
[Grand Arc Fantasy Gacha Probability Manipulation Overview Video]
For those who can’t read Japanese, summarized:
There is a game from Japan called *Grand Arc Fantasy*. The game is very popular in Japan.
In fact, it’s the one that overtook *Girls’ Memorial* to claim the top mobile game revenue spot.
However, feeling the urgency due to the launch of *Reverse Arcadia*, it seems they rushed an event.
This rushed event featured a newly released character, Guren, who was heavily pushed by the developers.
She had great performance, decent illustrations, and was a versatile character who appeared in every event without exception.
So when they held a pickup event with this character, almost everyone who played *Grand Arc Fantasy* spent hundreds on the game, and most ended up failing.
Other mobile gacha games had a lower failure rate, leading to most *Grand Arc Fantasy* users suspecting foul play when a heroic user came forward to collect and organize the actual pull probabilities.
From that user’s summarized results, the probability for the two other pickup characters was 13%, while Guren’s was only 2%.
With many already angry at *Grand Arc Fantasy*’s notorious pay-to-win strategy, this event became the tipping point against the company.
[Comments]
– Expected from these gacha game developers lol.
– These guys are just turning games into gambling lol.
– But isn’t this something that should be tested with other games too?
[Nickname: Unknown]
[Title: Shouldn’t we also investigate *Girls’ Memorial* and *Reverse Arcadia*, or what?]
Let’s be honest; even these guys were pretty infamous until recently among the domestic game companies.
No matter how trustworthy Jihojin is as a director, he is only one among all game developers—how do we know what they did?
Especially since, during the last stream, it was revealed that *Reverse Arcadia* has no ceiling system at all.
Moreover, there were whispers about strange probabilities during the pickups in *Girls’ Memorial*.
Isn’t it worth investigating?
‘Hmm…’
As expected, the spark of the gacha probability controversy has now jumped to our game.
Even with the good image our game has right now, I thought the fire might only reach us towards the end, but contrary to my expectation, our game became the first target in the controversy.
Well, it’s not like you can change a 10-year-old, tarnished corporate image from the main office with just a few good games.
While I found the situation ironic, I wasn’t too worried.
It was because evidence proving our innocence in this matter was already being gathered in Japan.
As time went on, loyal users would surely bring these resources from Japan and refute the allegations, so it didn’t seem necessary for us to step in and manage public opinion directly.
Just as I had anticipated, within days, rebuttals began to appear on community forums.