Ribbons, Webpages, and Chair-spinning
Due to the law of circumstance, when something happens, people are usually in the habit of discussing it. Thus we find Aiko Sakurada a few days ago with her hair in an unholy tangle of strands (since there is one for every successive day and since today happened to be a Sunday there were seven sort of kinks in her hair, tied together by some pink ribbons that didn't know what they were doing there and didn't particularly want to be there).
"
Ne, Kenta."
"Yes?" It was always "Yes?" with this guy. You could look at him and you could tell he was never the type to just say "Yeah"; no, it was always uptight and formal.
"I heard that a few companies were offering internships and stuff."
"That they are; Dreamsoft first began, then Hayden Games followed suit."
"Ah,
sou ka. Hmmm."
Kenta kept silent; it wasn't his job to speak and anyway he was too busy trying to trace the outlines of her hair.
"Feh!"
"Pardon me?"
"Internships. I thought it was standard in most companies like this."
"Yes."
"Oh good. We
do do those too, right?"
"But of course."
A spiffy webpage went up.
ATTENTION:
Do you want work in one of the Big Three? Do you have qualifications? Well, the Karui Kiba Corporation is looking for you! We won't require anything specific from you. We want people who can work and who know things. So if you think you have a talent that can be put to good use, come on down and we'll hook you up!
Flyers were distributed. Special tech magazines received ads, as did such nerdy sites as Slashdot.
It would be excellent.
-----
Katsu Nagato was in a dark room. That is to say, although the room was brightly lit, it was a bit too small for his tastes and there was just an aura of darkness. This is because of the work he was doing. The Public Relations Manager often has a sort of miasma around him, almost like he lies for a living, although to be fair, his job is more of a 50-50 combination of lies and truth.
What he was doing was he was putting the final touches on the underground campaign.
Taggers were poised in major cities. They would graffiti on "The LC" on random buildings. He had cleared it all with the police by filing his request under "Murals". He had a nice website set up about the features of the Light Complex.
The Light Complex is a high-tier system designed with the gamer in mind. Its focus on putting the gamer first puts it above par with all the other comparative consoles on the market...
And lastly he was about to "leak" something to the press. He had his man, Sasuke Tanaka. He was the man he counted on to "leak" stories. His leak was a simple one:
To: the Japan Times
Keep an eye out on the Karui Kiba Corporation. Expect a handheld device next quarter.
-----
Aiko Sakurada was spinning around in her chair. Today she had chosen to wear a bright, fiery, red dress. For once they were not in the chunky business room but rather her private office. It was filled with interesting trinkets, had an annoying color theme of pink, and was very loud and eccentric. In other words it was weird as hell and Kenta Ito, the consummate (well not really, but it was the best she could get given her attitude) lawyer, didn't enjoy being in it. His sharp suit led order and semblance to the room, something which he frankly wished her life and indeed her personality in general had more of.
Presently she was whining about something and sounding very much like a schoolgirl.
"Kentaaaaaaaaa," she said, "I don't wanna do these silly budget reports!"
"I'm sorry, Aiko, but you must." No honorifics from him. It had taken a year to get him to call her by her first name again; he was too much of a straight-laced conservative. It was always
Sakurada-san. At first, it was even worse, it was
Sakurada-sama. She shuddered a little inside.
He grimaced a little on the inside when he said "Aiko". Why was she so laid-back and so heedless of proper societal conventions? It made him a little sick, to be honest.
She collapsed on top of the mahogany desk (a beauty by any standard except perhaps an environmentalist's) and twirled her pen aimlessly. She pouted and whined some more. Kenta looked at his watch. But finally she did what he told her to do.
-----
Studio Name: Karui Kiba Corporation
Head of Studio/Player: Aiko Sakurada/LightFang
Income: $36,000 (Average)
Tech/Design: 7
Employee Artistic/Programming: Average
Confidence: 7
Reputation: 5
Customer Satisfaction: 5
Production Costs: $15,000
Employee Costs: $4,000
-----
-$15,000 Production Costs
-$4,000 Employee Costs
-$2,000 to Hayden Games for GENOA
-$2,000 to EtherEnd Games for Over Drive
-$1,000 to Whistlewolf for The Eternal Kingdom's
-$1,500 to Triggersoft for Blue Ribbon
-$1,400 to Nuclear Kid Industries for Invasion
-$2,000 to CW Inc. for School Wars
-$5,000 to Low-Level Marketing
-$100 for pretty ribbons
-$1,000 on interior decorating
-$1,000 on an office aquarium
For the record the last three items definitely count as employee costs.