Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 783: Data

Japan, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment Headquarters.

One week after the release of Candy Fun Match, the first sales report had already been placed on Takayuki's desk.

Unlike traditional buy-to-play video games, Candy Fun Match came with a broader set of data metrics.

Interestingly, the top entry wasn't revenue—it was total downloads.

In the first week alone, more than seven million users had downloaded the game on Facebook phones.

Considering that Facebook phones had sold roughly ten million units so far, this meant that over half of all Facebook phone users had downloaded and played the game.

Next on the report was the average playtime per user.

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On average, users who downloaded the game spent about four hours playing it during the first week.

In this world, most people didn't have a clear concept of what that number meant—after all, there hadn't been many similar games before.

Candy Fun Match, launched by Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, essentially fired the first shot in the era of free-to-play games.

People often say, "Free is the most expensive."

There's some truth to that—something Takayuki didn't deny.

But at the same time, Takayuki saw this "free" model a bit differently.

Candy Fun Match was a textbook example of a game that thrived through sheer volume.

The game itself didn't require much spending at all.

Unless someone was a perfectionist who had to achieve the top rating on every level, the average player could enjoy the game freely without spending a cent.

And for those who wanted to play just a bit better, monthly spending typically didn't exceed $60.

That made it a relatively cheap form of entertainment compared to many others.

What's more, Takayuki saw Candy Fun Match as a game that lowered the barrier to entry for video games.

It allowed people who had never played games before to slowly start exploring the world of gaming—and even shift their perception of it.

Through this, more and more people could come to appreciate the appeal of video games, rather than resist their existence.

That, Takayuki believed, was the game's greatest value.

On the data sheet, revenue was actually ranked third.

In just one week, Candy Fun Match generated $7 million in total revenue—an average of $1 million per day.

Within Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, that wasn't considered an especially high figure.

Other games could easily break a million units sold on launch day or in their first week, bringing in tens of millions of dollars—far more than Candy Fun Match.

But Candy Fun Match had an incredibly low development cost. The core content of the game had been completed in just a few days by a collaborative team effort. After that, a team of about 40 to 50 people was enough to maintain the game and continue adding new levels.

At launch, the game featured only 1,000 levels—which clearly wasn't enough.

There were plenty of players who loved to blaze through levels or binge play.

And Candy Fun Match was designed to be a long-term live service game, not a one-time release. As long as the game continued to operate, the needs of those power players had to be considered—meaning the number of levels needed to keep growing.

The original plan for Candy Fun Match included at least 10,000 levels.

And even that number would continue to increase over time.

This was one of the key ways to maintain user engagement.

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Yes, it inevitably led to some repetitive design—but the game wasn't meant to be played continuously. It was more about filling the small gaps in people's time.

In Takayuki's memory, Candy Fun Match would eventually reach an average annual revenue of $1.2 billion.

At the moment, it was only making $1 million a day—just over $300 million a year.

This proved that the game's potential was still far from fully realized.

The user base was still just a few million, but in the future, Candy Fun Match was expected to surpass 500 million registered users.

Just in download volume alone, it had the potential to surpass Tetris, the highest-selling game in the world.

Beyond download numbers, average playtime, and total revenue, there were also metrics like daily new users, user spending curves, and many others.

The more detailed the data, the more insights could be drawn—leading to ways to further grow the user base.

Takayuki had already given the mobile team a rough understanding of how to use these data points to continually tweak the game's content to better match its strengths.

He was fairly satisfied with the current performance. The future looked promising—the user base was still growing rapidly day by day, and Facebook had even provided updates on their smartphone sales.

In recent weeks, the sales of Facebook-branded phones had seen a modest bump—and based on data comparisons, it was clear that Candy Fun Match had driven at least part of that increase.

When people around you are playing Candy Fun Match, and you're using an MK phone, you can't play with them—and you miss out on the shared experience.

And because Candy Fun Match was truly addictive—something that made people want to keep playing level after level—others watching would naturally become curious and envious, leading them to consider buying a Facebook phone.

In that sense, Candy Fun Match had become a kind of organic advertisement for Facebook smartphones.

When Bob saw these numbers, he couldn't stop grinning. He now had solid backing in front of the shareholders.

Those who had previously doubted his decision to develop smartphones had all gone silent.

Since this new success, no one within the company had dared to question him again.

Whenever Bob made a decision, people simply accepted it—no more doubts.

It wasn't just about monetary gain; it was also a tangible rise in his status within the company—something that felt better than anything else.

Bob's respect for Takayuki had only grown. He was completely in awe of him.

In the broader market, professional firms were constantly collecting sales data from major companies.

Since Gamestar Electronic Entertainment wasn't publicly listed, it didn't have to disclose its data—making it hard for outsiders to get information. But Facebook was different.

Data firms could easily obtain relevant information from Facebook.

Some of the Candy Fun Match data that had reached Takayuki's desk had also made its way to these firms.

Not long after, those figures were made public online.

Thanks to the buzz created by Candy Fun Match, the entire Facebook phone series had seen, on average, a 10% boost in sales.

In the stock market, that was seen as a promising signal—Facebook's stock price rose again as a result.