While the populace in Europe were still on their way to work, people in the East were approaching the end of the day. To be clear, that didn’t mean they would stop working, it just meant the afternoon was about to end and the trudge would continue well into the evening. At around 5pm, the sun was far from tired and its blazing rays beat down upon anyone foolish enough to try getting home early. In the metropolitan office of “Great and Feeling Young” aka GAFY, a Japanese video game company founded by a man who had watched too much skin care advertising, the team discussed their next step.
Slightly podgy, with a face that was constantly either in slight disbelief or confusion, the game design lead, Hanzo, put the usual finger to his glasses. “So,” he paused, and assumed it was clear that this was the time for serious talk. He looked around at his colleagues and hoped for some ideas, as his brain was far too occupied with the actual workings of their newest game, Sword Man 7. He hated the marketing side of things, it was just so exhausting, for all the impractical reasons. Still, it had to be done. So he relied on his team, and asked “any suggestions on how we should proceed with this beta?”
“Well,” replied the surprisingly caucasian man across from him. “Friendzoning is the most typical outcome.” Charles, with a gleam in his eye, was French and overly smartly dressed for the smart-casual atmosphere at GAFY, and typically tried to translate obscure wordplay and puns into Japanese which dramatically failed ninety nine point nine percent of the time. Still, Charles had prepared for the case that this meticulously crafted wordplay just seemed like some clumsy gaijin nonsense. As Hanzo’s face began to express actual confusion, Charles continued with a factual response to the question, which still contained wordplay, albeit again, lost in translation:
“We need to reach out to alphas in the social sphere, in the other gaming communities. We need to make friends but keep them at a distance, not too close so they start messaging us every day asking for free games, as it has been in the past, just create some friendly links so we can get more eyes on the product before the general press reviews.”
Now to Hanzo, this idea made sense, but he needed a little clarification:
“In this case, what constitutes an alpha?”