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Chapter 274: Damn, Are We Unstoppable?
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 11:31:27 +0000 UTC#CopyrightKings
#PeakNationWindyPeak
#ExtremeSports
#NextLevelSportsGame
#YeetSimulator
Eeeesh…
Zoey Parker leaned back in her Seattle office, scrolling through gaming forums, lips pursed, vibe all over the place.
What a mess.
Why’s this bad feeling creeping in again?
She’d been hyped for Peak Nation. Not some basic football or basketball game, not even a semi-niche track-and-field sim. They went full send on extreme sports—a genre so underground it barely had competition.
And the kicker? Thanks to Tetsuya Moritan’s big-brain play, she jacked the budget to $101M. Straight-up wild.
This wasn’t Sekiro, with its Komina beef and Global Game Expo spotlight. No way it’d get that kind of hype. Plus, Zoey had pushed the system’s pricing limit, landing at $40 per copy.
The doc was perfect for tanking:
Main Project: Peak Nation (Unlocked)
Investment: $101M
Settlement Time: 21 days (+0 days)
Rebate Rate: 10x (+0x)
Current Revenue: $0
Estimated Rebate: $1.01B
Remaining Settlement Time: TBD
Unit Price: $40
$101M to recover in three weeks, $40 a pop. With a 20% platform cut, they needed $127M in sales—3.175M copies—to break even. For a shooter? Easy, especially with WindyPeak’s FPS roots and next-gen tech. But a sports game? Extreme sports? Niche as hell. The player base was tiny compared to FPS fans.
Losses were locked in. Zoey couldn’t predict how deep, but red ink was coming. She’d even toasted Tetsuya Moritan as her money-burning MVP.
But now?
One month. Six trailers, domestic and international, plus OneRepublic showing up in the “Counting Stars” MV. Peak Nation blew up out of nowhere.
Zoey realized the problem: Tetsuya could burn cash, but he also knew how to burn it. Every dollar hit the mark—on-location shoots, copyright deals, all spent like a pro.
Back at Komina, he was a caged beast. At WindyPeak? Unleashed. No budget caps, no leash. He’d evolved into a full-on madlad, flexing his global network. Without him, Gus couldn’t have landed heavyweights like OneRepublic or Justin Bieber.
Zoey facepalmed. She’d hired an absolute beast.
Ugh… damn. She logged into VibeTech’s data site. Last month, post-Sekiro’s sales drop, IndieVibe reported 7M motion-sensing cabins sold worldwide. Even if Peak Nation was IndieVibe X2 exclusive, that was a massive market.
After some thought, Zoey sighed, tweaking the doc: “Settlement Time” from 21 days to 21 days (+90 days). Rebate rate? Cranked from 10x to 100x.
No losses here. Time to pivot to another project, maybe a derivative to chase that 100x return.
Her real loss wasn’t Peak Nation anymore—it was—
Knock knock.
A rap at the door snapped her out of it. “Come in,” Zoey called.
Claire Quinn, head secretary, stepped in, notebook ready. “Ms. Parker, the Garden Warfare spin-off meeting’s set. You good?”
“Oh! Yeah, let’s roll!” Zoey jumped up, grabbing her sticker-covered notebook and a pen, bolting out. “Hurry, Gus and the crew are probably antsy!”
Claire blinked. What? In three years, she’d never seen Zoey this stoked for a project.
“Ms. Parker, this spin-off… big deal?” Claire asked as they hustled to the meeting room.
“Nah, not really,” Zoey said, flashing a sheepish grin. “Just a side gig, not our main flex.”
Please. In her head, this was the project. If it tanked $18M in the set time, the rebate could hit tens or hundreds of billions. Billions! She and Gus could kick back forever, three generations deep in wealth.
But no way she’d admit it was a “key project.” That’d rally the company, Nexlify, Vibe Entertainment, even Parker Capital. Too much support, and her loss plan would flop.
Zoey grinned. Damn, are we unstoppable?
Across the U.S., no one could touch WindyPeak. “We’re just a mid-tier game studio,” she sighed to Claire. “How come we got no real rivals?”
Claire paused, lips twitching. Zoey was pulling a Gus-level flex, all smooth and low-key.
“Uh…” Claire said. “Maybe ‘cause all 15 of our games are bangers. Or your bold moves crushed shady competition. Or we grew the market so much our rivals are sending thank-you notes. Probably ‘cause we’ve got Vibe Entertainment, Parker Capital, and the industry bigwigs backing us.”
Zoey stopped, blinking. “We’re that clutch now?”
“Just facts,” Claire said, smirking. “But maybe don’t flex like that in partner talks.”
“Why not?” Zoey scratched her head.
Claire sighed. “Just… don’t.” They’ll want to deck you.
Zoey’s chill swagger was next-level. Even Claire, all poise, couldn’t help but think: Boss lady’s serving lethal vibes.
“Let’s hit the meeting,” Claire said, pushing open the conference room door.
California, Silicon Valley. ThunderBull Energy HQ.
The conference room’s long table screamed old-school corporate. At the head sat Matt Lager, Austrian chairman. Next to him, Zach Xu, Chinese-American CEO and second-biggest shareholder.
Five years ago, Matt was a hotshot VP at Medler, Germany’s top consumer goods firm. On a Silicon Valley trip, jet-lagged, he chugged a local energy drink. Sweet, zesty, and a straight-up fatigue-killer. Market instincts kicked in. He tracked down Zach Xu, then running a small health-drink startup.
They clicked. Zach brought the core formula and stayed CEO. Matt ditched Medler, sold his shares, and became ThunderBull’s top shareholder. Their drink? ThunderBull Energy.
Now, five years later, ThunderBull owned California’s energy drink scene and had clout across the West Coast, with a $10B+ market value. Next up: global domination.
But the global market was locked down. Giants like Coke and Pepsi crushed standard ad plays. Expensive, low-impact.
So, Matt and Zach pivoted: energy drinks = sports. Sponsor a football or basketball team, push the brand.
Solid plan. Lots of companies did it. But reality hit hard.
Market research showed top teams in football, basketball, and hockey demanded insane sponsorship fees and were already locked in. Smaller teams? Stuck in local leagues, no global reach. No point.
“We’re stuck,” Zach said in the meeting, hands spread, eyeing the execs. “A month of research. Any fresh ideas?”
Silence. Faces tensed. New ideas? The sports sponsorship market was a walled garden. They’d even scoped niche sports—lacrosse in the U.S., cricket in the UK, even curling in Canada. All locked by local sponsors.
Matt broke the quiet. “I got something.”
Zach perked up. “What’s up, Matt?”
Matt hesitated. “Since existing sports are locked, why not sponsor something unorganized?”
The room froze. Unorganized sports? What?
“Like extreme sports?” Matt shrugged. “No one’s tapped that.”
Hiss. Gasps all around.
Everyone knew Matt was a sports nut, hence the sponsorship angle. But extreme sports?
Brows furrowed, lips twitched. No sponsors, sure. But why? Think about it.
