“You need to quit. Look, you don’t want to end up getting shipped out like Ken, do you?”
The co-workers in earshot of Hideki’s warning looked either away or downwards, and their faces darkened, while their fingers spidered faster over the keyboard, rabbiting more rapidly and almost undetectably more pained into their microphones to dictate their written work.
Hideki liked telling this story, but he couldn’t help expressing his relish in Ken’s misfortune, which detracted from the story’s objective. It seemed to be more efficient when explained at low volume over after-work drinks by an older, nicer colleague, as an advisory tale. Due to the inherent nature of erroneously passing on facts as this friendly neighbourly office buddy had gone way past “just the one” beer, certain details became either exaggerated or conflated, while colleagues would jump in to add details or just to listen, with open mouths and eyes agape.
Ken was probably born in Misono, not far from Saitama Stadium 2002. He quickly grew tired of the shouting and cheering that echoed over the short grassy flats that constituted a lot of this rural-ish town, and so grunted whenever he saw a football shirt. The days were quiet, as most of the locals commuted to Tokyo to work, and stayed in the evenings to play. Still, there were a few local hotspots, like the shopping mall and the red light district but frankly Ken preferred playing video games on his own and spent most of his summers in the bedroom while his classmates ran along the crowded beaches trying to hit a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded and then watch the fireworks, praying to hold hands with a girl. He thought this was all “pretty lame” and preferred to power up his team before descending deeper into dungeons. He also got into American FPS and started studying English so he could watch all that Hollywood had to offer, as nature intended. He wondered about visiting Brooklyn one day and getting surrounded by hip hop rappers who would challenge him to a duel. He would defeat them, of course, and they would surround him to congratulate him, hugging and patting him, saying “you alright, white boy!”
Graduating from Saitama university with a degree in European and American studies, he applied for a job with the gaming companies in Tokyo. As he sat in the interview room, he overheard two presumably resident applicants chuckling about inaka universities, and how these countryside graduates were better off learning how to farm. They noticed him staring and changed the topic, their eyes darting around the room to escape his glare.
With his wide knowledge of American games and his very narrow ability in speaking English, he was welcomed into GAFY under the wing of the marketing department. He had wanted to become a games tester but they convinced him that his talents in foreign areas were more valuable.
It is at this point where the sempai would begin their retelling of his tale.
Ken liked working at GAFY. It was a dream come true. He married some nondescript woman introduced by his mother and rarely spoke to her again. They moved to Tokyo, into a dismal block of flats, and were ecstatic to have left behind their rural roots. After ten years, he had climbed the ladder from nondescript Marketing Assistant to Staff Manager to Project Co-ordinator.
It was around this time that he became addicted to a gacha game and his focus was not where it should have been. Some say he also got sucked into pachinko, while others talk of falling in love with a foreign hostess and racking up bills, just like the cliché. The story that is consistent is how he fell out of love with his American clients. He lost patience with these flippant gaijins and their lack of respect for tradition and formality. He became disillusioned with their games and their lack of accountability when it was clear that they caused criminal behaviours. He just couldn’t be arsed to deal with their demands that always arrived just before he was about to get into the bath, or go to sleep. While he was at work, ready to work, they were unresponsive. So he spent more and more time with the game, and it was far more satisfying. As a consequence, he began to slip up and miss deadlines, causing game and promotion materials to be delayed.
One month before a huge game show, there was an issue with a large anime figure that was supposed to be sent from China to the UK. The paperwork was blowing his mind, it was just requests for signature after signature, while he had more important missions to complete, real missions, missions that involved a dungeon boss with a recommended party level 67, and if he didn’t do it within the time limit, the reward would be gone forever. Forever. So he let the clock tick, and slipped off to the toilets to finish the dungeon. When he finally sent the completed forms, they still had to sit in a tray somewhere in a pile on a clerk’s desk, in both countries, so when they were finally approved, they were sent back to Japan by post. It was very irritating, as they didn’t have a fax, and he didn’t have permission to use a scanner. This left him with two days to send the actual figure. Even with express delivery, it was much too late.
Fans who had heard about the figure, bought tickets and travelled to the show, some even coming from neighbouring countries. They arrived only to find disappointment and some random sakura tree hastily slapped together to make an Instagram scene. It was nice, really, but not exactly the same as posing with a 1:1 scale MegaSlaver the Slavic Barbarian. These fans began to leave their feedback on social media.
The CMO was fairly annoyed but shrugged his shoulders. Then, according to the secretary who was definitely not eavedropping, the CMO was called by the CFO, who told him to STFU and shouted at him about damaged sale projections and poor SNS response and how this wasn’t his job and why was he explaining this to him when it should be the other way around and someone needs to pay for this, maybe it should be you, you fucking idiot, GTFO.
The CMO was now furious and stormed into the office to find out who was responsible. Before long, Ken found himself in the HR office, sitting opposite a middle aged lady with middle length hair, a grey cardigan, a beige top, and a middle length skirt. Looking over her tablet, she looked up at him, and looked down again. “We have a new position for you,” she said. “you’re being transferred to our subsidiary in the US.”
After a few moments of shock, Ken was ecstatic. The HR warmly congratulated him. “That’s all?” “Why, yes.” she replied, blinking.
He had this tiny inkling that something was off, as he could feel several pairs of eyes follow him as he exited the office, but he took this as jealousy. Did a sea of murmurs break out as soon as he closed the door? No, he must have imagined it.
He came home to Shoko and broke the news over dinner, in-between mouthfuls. He assumed she would be up to task in taking care of everything.
For the first time, she looked at him with tears in her eyes, and spoke with clear, rising irritation.
“What??? What about Toki, what about his school? What will I do? Do you know how hard I worked hard to get invited to the wives’ circle? No! I don’t want this! I don’t want to leave! I don’t want to! I don’t want to!!”
Blinking many times, as he watched his dreams unravel, Ken went back to HR, who simply told him that there were no other opportunities at this time. There was no other choice, no going back. And if he decided to leave, he would lose all his benefits and pension plan.
“Leave? You mean… quit?”
It did not occur to him that this was an option.
“It says on your CV that you really like America, right? So, it would be best to pack your bags and take this chance to enjoy the real American burger, right?”
He couldn’t agree more, but when he returned home, all he got was tears, from both his wife and his son. He was especially disappointed in his son, and he blamed his wife for not playing FPS with him. If only he had had the time. Then he was reminded of missions he had to finish up before the day was over. So he just grunted an acquiesce in his wife’s direction and handed in his resignation notice the next day.
What follows depends on how excited and inebriated the story teller was. Some say Ken couldn’t find another job, as he was blacklisted in the industry. His wife left him and took his son back to Saitama. Or, he left his wife and lived with a hostess, burning his money on gold champagne, only to get kicked out and go on the run from debt collecting yakuza. Some say he simply moved back with his parents, and still works nights at a 24 hour konbini store, a bike ride between Saitama and Tokyo. Nobody really knows the real truth. Either way the conclusion of the parable was always the same:
“You have to quit this game, Makoto, delete it.” said Alex, with his hands on his hips.
“Don’t get high on your own supply!” said Charles, wagging his finger.
“Don’t become a ghost in the sh- sh – system”, said Batou, who had a difficulty with pronouncing foreign words, but loved using them all the same.
Makoto slid her finger over the screen to drag the game into the recycle bin.
I mean, she thought to herself while restraining the urge to smirk, all my data is stored in the cloud, I can always reinstall it later.
She looked up. They were still waiting.
“I hope you didn’t forget we all work at a game company,” said Hideki, only half turned towards her. With only the slightest menace in his voice, he uttered: “Delete your account.” As he was sat at the managers table, turning any more would be seen as favouritism.
“Delete! Delete! Delete!” they chanted, waving their arms in a synchronised cutting motion.
With tears welling in her eyes, she pressed the button on the website to delete her account, to the eruption of cheers all around and the clinking of beer glasses.
Hideki joined in the cheers in a very mild fashion and then went back to scrolling, as the other management staff continued to orally molest the deliciously crispy tempura prawns, artichoke and aubergines. Sliding into view was an update on Sensor Tower that reported how Last War:Survival had made 77 million USD in February 2026. The game was simple, shoot oncoming zombies. How the hell did it make so much money? Now he was pissed. In fact, he was turning melon green with envy. Fuck this. He started writing a memo to all staff:
“Each personnel of GAFY is expected to download at least one of our titles and play it every day.”
He put his cursor above that sentence and added,
“To boost team spirit and support our hardworking development team, we are launching a new initiative.”
He scratched his chin and then added,
“We will publish leaderboards every week and the top scorers will get prizes.”
He paused, titled his head, and then deleted the last part of the sentence.