1995 was a magical year.
The electronic gaming industry was rapidly rising.
The United States, Japan, and even countries where electronic games hadn't been officially released yet had already developed a significant industry.
Game development teams from various countries around the world seemed to be quietly emerging.
Ichiro Murakami, who witnessed the rise of electronic gaming firsthand and was a close observer, had many emotions about it.
He put extra effort into this year's online awards. Even though it could only be held online this time, he started preparing about a month ago.
First, he opened a player voting channel.
Then he individually contacted several independent game reviewers on the website who already had some reputation, and they gathered to discuss the annual game awards for this year.
When they found out that Ichiro Murakami's game website was created by a middle school student, they were genuinely shocked for quite a while.
However, Ichiro Murakami was very modest, always saying that he was just a person in the spotlight, and he had a teacher behind the scenes who had been secretly guiding him.
This explanation also relieved them a bit. They were actually a bit afraid of Ichiro Murakami's potential.
To have such a large user base at such a young age, the future was truly limitless.
However, despite their admiration, their focus was still on the game selection.
After a month of selection and player voting, the online awards were finally announced on December 29, just before the arrival of the new year.
The Best Game of the Year: Street Fighter.
This was a completely new genre.
And whether in Japan or the United States, it was the most talked-about and popular game of the year.
Regardless, this game was truly deserving of the title.
There were almost no objections from anyone.
Then the Best Action Game was also awarded to Street Fighter.
Best Sound Effects, likewise, went to Street Fighter.
And several other minor awards were also given to Street Fighter.
It wasn't until the Best Game category that there were some differences in the game selection.
Best Sports Game went to Street Basketball.
Best Racing Game went to the 3D Racing by Surai Electronics.
Initially, Need for Speed was also excellent.
But because 3D Racing was groundbreaking and its game quality was not much worse than Need for Speed, after careful consideration by Ichiro Murakami and his team, they decided to award 3D Racing.
Actually, there was another reason: besides 3D Racing, all the other games selected for Best Game were completely dominated by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
There was really no way around it.
They actually wanted to diversify a bit more and give other game companies a chance.
But the quality of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's games was just too terrifying, not even on the same level.
For example, Best Storyline Game went to Final Fantasy 5, and Best Role-Playing Game was Dragon Quest 4.
Finally, when there was no other option, Ichiro Murakami and his team discussed and came up with several awards for the most promising emerging game companies.
This way, they could avoid being completely dominated by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
After all, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment was no longer an emerging company but a giant in the gaming industry, so it was not possible to compete for such awards.
However, the most promising emerging game companies were still mainly those that exclusively developed games for SFC, and they still had a relationship with Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
The so-called selection of the best game is sometimes similar to awards in other industries.
In the case of equal strength, fairness is strived for as much as possible.
This year you win, next year I win, it's called "sharing the meat."
But the electronic gaming industry is somewhat extreme.
The top games are truly despair-inducing, and there are no signs of anything surpassing them for now.
As for the players, they don't really consider fairness in these awards; they just want to see if their favorite game wins.
And since this is the first game selection event, at least there aren't too many vested interests involved. Even though they considered fairness to some extent, over ninety percent of the awards still went to Gamestar Electronic Entertainment.
Of course, players were delighted about this. They were happy that they hadn't chosen the wrong gaming platform, and that all the games developed by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment were indeed the best.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment truly ruled the world.
As for the gaming awards, Takayuki didn't pay much attention to them. At most, he just glanced at the list after the awards were announced.
Actually, he already had a pretty good idea of what games would win those awards.
So far, there was no one who could compete with him. Surai Electronics' 3D Racing was the only game that broke through the barrier of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment and won an award.
This also proved that Surai Electronics had indeed worked hard enough, and they were worthy of Takayuki's special attention.
They were truly a powerful future opponent, one that couldn't be underestimated.
After the awards ceremony, 1995 quietly passed, and it was now 1996.
And just as the new year began, the electronic gaming industry immediately began to expand rapidly once again.
In the United States, three more companies chose to transition and develop electronic game consoles, evidently wanting a piece of the industry.
Because according to Wall Street professionals' estimates, in 1996, the number of gamers in the United States could grow to tens of millions.
There were no longer many companies that could ignore such a large user base.
So they all invested in game development.
In addition to developing game consoles, several companies also focused on developing online games for the computer PC platform.
Because there was a company that made a game called Dragon's Treasure before and earned quite a bit of money.
Other companies suddenly realized that making games didn't necessarily have to be for game consoles.
You could consider personal computers as giant game consoles, couldn't you?
And game development for personal computers didn't require any licensing fees, and even the cost of producing CDs could be saved because games could be downloaded and played over the internet.
And what's even more important is that games could now be played online.
This significantly increased the social aspect of gaming.
Dragon's Treasure was just launched in the United States and immediately received a warm welcome from many people.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment developed more gaming enthusiasts.
And Dragon's Treasure was like opening up more PC network user players.
This also made the development company of Dragon's Treasure instantly become the darling of capital. In a short time, their valuation skyrocketed rapidly. In less than half a year, their valuation in the United States had reached five hundred million dollars, which was quite terrifying.