"Think about what I've said, Katsuya. You can't keep living like a child."
"Yeah, yeah, mom. I'll-"
"I'm serious. You graduate soon. It's time you grow up and look for work. You can't stay at the konbini forever."
"I know, mom... I'll... I'll talk to you later."
I sighed as I hung up the phone. It was the third time this week that my mother had called to lecture me about being an adult. She had always been on my case about being "traditionally successful" - get into a good school, get good grades, find a good job, fine a good wife, start a good family - and it always turned into an argument about how I didn't know what was good for me, that she knew better than anyone else what it was that I needed in my life. The closer I got to graduation, the worse it got. She didn't care that I was involved in video game development, since she didn't see games as being a real industry and was constantly trying to convince me that professional gaming wasn't a real job either - not that I was a streamer or a pro at all.
If I was being honest, I liked my part-time job at the convenience store. It covered my expenses, it was close to home, and it left plenty of time for gaming. It was chill and I liked that, even after graduation, it would still provide me the time and space to work on developing my own ideas. I just wished that my family was more supportive of what I wanted to do with my life.
Every time my mother called to remind me that I was letting my family down, I tended to curl up on my futon, feeling depressed and defeated until I either fell asleep or turned to gaming until the early hours of the morning to escape the real world. But this time felt different somehow and instead of shutting reality away, I got up and went to my desk, determined to prove my mother wrong about my career path choices. I started to scour websites, looking for job listings that I would be qualified for in just a few months despite the fact that I would be finishing a two-year program rather than a four-year one at a "proper" university. I copied all of the links I came across into an email, determined to make it as long as possible to fully get my point across. But then I stopped as the title of a posting caught my eye.
[PROFESSIONAL GAMERS WANTED!]
Well that sounded far too good to be true... but I found myself clicking on it. Sure, I didn't consider myself a pro-gamer but I felt pretty confident in my skills. What was the harm in reading about it? After all, it was probably some type of scam to hack into accounts or, at best, some unpaid beta tester thing. The full ad loaded and I read:
[PROFESSIONAL GAMERS WANTED!]
[Do you feel like there's something missing from the AI-run NPCs that make up so many background mechanics in MMORPGs? Do you believe that you could offer insight into what it is gamers actually want to see?]
So far so interesting, I thought to myself as I kept reading.
[If you want to be a part of ground-breaking developments in creating the most life-like experience in online gaming, please see below for more information on how to apply. We here at YuKen Studios look forward to hearing from you!]
I'd never scrolled down a webpage faster than I did then so I could read the rest of the ad. They were looking for someone who was personable (check), heavily invested in online gaming (double-check), and didn't mind long or unconventional work hours (okay, so I didn't know what that meant, but two of three wasn't bad). I tried as hard as I could to find a hidden catch, reading and re-reading the whole thing several times, but saw nothing that would be considered an obvious flaw. I had never heard of YuKen Studios, but following the link to the company, it all appeared to be a legitimate studio. The man in charge, Yuhara Kenji, had come from a high-up position with one of the major studios to start one of his own and I realized I had played at least a few of his games in the past. It would for sure be a crazy opportunity to work for his company and I felt myself getting excited for what felt like the first time in a long time.
I completed an application, my hands shaking when I hit "SEND", and smiled at the "Thanks for applying!" message for a moment.
There are a lot of people who say gamers just waste their lives away on the games they fixate on. They say that we're shut-ins destined for nothing but carpal tunnel and heart-attacks. If only they knew - if only I knew - just how much my life was about to change all because of an online game...