“Games and Money”

 

I used to work as a scriptwriter at a video game company.

 

I love games even now. I still play and enjoy them as a user.

 

I never did any great work in the game industry. But sometimes I get concerned about games these days.

 

I get concerned about the billing.

 

When I was a game creator, there was no on-line shopping or in-app billing.

 

People used to buy video games at game shops. If we bought a game, we paid money at the shop. We would buy the whole game. The billing would happen just once.

 

That was simple. But there were bad companies. They spent most of their budget on the designs of the boxes. They hired a good designer and copywriter. They sold good-looking packages. Many people loved the looks and bought them. But the contents were shabby. Those companies made a lot of profit in those days.

 

Don’t judge a game by its appearance.

 

Samurais need chivalry. Merchants need chivalry. Game creators also need chivalry.

 

Now those companies can’t continue such business. People can check the reviews of the games online.

 

These days, billing systems have changed. Smartphone games are basically free. Game creators need money to live. So, naturally, they should ask the users to pay. The point I am impressed by is the timing they choose to ask to be paid. If a user pays, then the user can enjoy more of the game. Most of the games are really good at creating situations that make the user want to pay. The creators are good at choosing when to ask the user to pay. They are too good. Some children spend too much of their parents’ money on such games. It is almost dangerous.

 

Once I played a smartphone game. In the game, users run a farm and go on adventures. The user would grow crops and feed animals. Sometimes, they would explore the world. I had played the game for a few weeks. But I couldn’t find a way to get food for the animals. They were hungry. Then I finally found out that I needed to pay a fee to feed the animals. I was outraged. The animals couldn’t die because of hunger. But they kept asking for food because they were hungry. Could I go on an adventure to address this situation?

 

If a child plays that game, he or her could grow up as an adult who doesn’t care about other people’s pain. The game creators undermined people’s good nature.

 

Samurais need chivalry. Merchants need chivalry. Game creators also need chivalry.

 

I quit the game. We should not forget to have a conscience in any of our dealings.

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Picture by Keiigo.K

“Clapping”

My wife’s sister is working as a nurse in London.

 

When the pandemic started, my sister-in-law cared for the first Covid-19 patient at her hospital. The hospital had few PPEs. The PPEs were all the same size. They perfectly matched her.

 

Then she moved to a hospital that specialized in Covid-19. She was on the front line during the pandemic. I think she was a hero.

 

On TV, I heard that people at the hospitals for Covid-19 in the UK would welcome commuting medical workers by clapping. I was impressed by this story. At the time, in Japan, medical workers’ children were being abused at school. I thought this reflected a negative side of Japan.

 

My sister-in-law and I talked about the topic. I assumed she would be proud of the actions of the people in the UK. But, instead, she said, “I hated that.”

 

She is a very shy person. She hates to have attention be paid to her. She hates to have people clap for her. Most of my readers are theatrical artists. So, most of us can’t understand this feeling. There are some people in the world who don’t like to be clapped for.

 

She said she was simply doing her job. She was just commuting to her workplace.

 

This did not deserve to be clapped for.

 

She had worked on the front line during the pandemic. She didn’t get infected at her workplace. I think she is a really great nurse.

 

A few years later, Covid-19 infections became common occurrences.

 

She got infected at a family party. Of course, nurses are normal people in their private lives.

 

I learned that there are some people who hate to have people clap for them. But I still want to clap for great workers. Is this because I am a theatrical person?

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Picture by Zyuri Takai

Slapping Acting

              I was a member of a drama club when I was a high school student. Sometimes, drama clubs from different schools gathered for conferences, and we had comment workshops. I was a member of one such workshop. Some local theater people attended as advisors. We discussed the performances of each drama club, and one performance gave us a very difficult topic.

              In one scene, an actor slapped another, hitting the other actor’s face pretty hard. Most of the audience was surprised but enjoyed the scene; teenagers love aggression. However, this created a major issue for the comment workshop, which had two adult theater artists. Their opinions were completely opposite.

              One artist criticized the scene, saying we should not allow violence in any situation. Actors need to learn to pretend to slap. If someone got injured on the stage, they might be unable to continue their performance.

              The other artist appraised the scene and said that reality is important. If actors practiced enough, serious accidents would never happen.

              The two artists argued for a very long time. They almost forgot that this was a workshop for high school students. We were surprised to hear a serious argument between adults.

              This is a controversial topic in acting worldwide. People have never reached a consensus about this. In my opinion, if the actors and director have a relationship of mutual trust and enough time to practice, it might be OK. But I feel slapping someone on stage is kind of an old custom. Audiences might not want to watch that sort of scene these days.

              Kiyosi Atumi is one of the greatest actors in Japanese history. In his main work, “It’s Tough Being a Man,” he described a scene in which he slapped an actress’s face. The director asked him to actually slap her. I think he was reluctant to do that. As a result, he slapped her face very softly. It was almost touching. This could be a possible solution.

 

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Picture by VECTORIUM

Slight Bow

 

              When the pandemic started, some companies closed their buildings in Japan. The employees then gathered in small groups at karaoke clubs and tried to continue their jobs.

              At that time, I visited a karaoke club to enjoy karaoke. In a normal situation, there would be drunks, students, and elderly people in karaoke clubs. Most of them would be relaxed. But during the pandemic, most people in karaoke clubs were in working mode.

              Most Japanese karaoke clubs have designated smoking and non-smoking areas. At the karaoke club I visited, there was a common smoking room. No one could smoke except in the room. Of course, no one could do karaoke there, but it used to be a karaoke room.

              While I was smoking, a worker entered the smoking room. She bowed slightly to me and started smoking. Nobody had ever bowed to me in a karaoke club’s smoking room before. I guess she assumed I was not there to listen to karaoke but an important person at her company whom she didn’t know.

              Naturally, I bowed back to her. She might have been an important person trying to work during the pandemic.

 

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Picture by shrimpgraphic