Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 1013: Founding Father of the Gaming Industry

Ever since it was announced that Jesse Hormier would be directing the film, production had gone much more smoothly.

Resources across the industry began shifting toward this movie.

That was the power of Jesse's influence.

As for Jesse's request to adjust a few scenes in the story, Takayuki didn't mind. It only meant removing a few of his own planned Easter eggs.

Originally, the second act of Ready Player One was meant to include a horror scene from Kubrick's The Shining, which in this timeline created an interesting mirror to the original.

Once work officially began, Unreal Engine and Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's in-house VFX team joined the production.

It was Jesse's first time engaging directly with the video game world, and he saw firsthand how incredible today's game technologies — like Unreal Engine and advanced visual effects — had become.

Compared to this, many of his past filming and VFX methods felt quite old-fashioned.

And those older methods required a lot of labor costs.

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But once the Unreal Engine team and official VFX crew were on site, and with help from AI, the special effects computers began running at full speed.

Jesse estimated that the visual effects done by Gamestar could cut production costs by at least one-third.

It opened his eyes. He began to realize just how powerful the video game industry had become.

It didn't just influence everyday entertainment — the technologies born from video game development could feed back into and benefit many other industries.

"Director Jesse, I'm your biggest fan! Enemy of Today is my favorite spy thriller of all time!"

Though Jesse was in his seventies, he was still young at heart. During breaks in filming, he often walked over to the effects department to see how things worked.

Although his age made it difficult to fully grasp things like programming — which younger people picked up easily — he still loved observing the process.

Among the team were a few of Jesse's longtime fans.

One of them, a lead scene effects supervisor, was thrilled to have Jesse there and eagerly explained how Unreal Engine worked, all while gushing over his admiration.

Jesse gave a warm smile. "Thank you for enjoying my films. Just like Halliday says at the end of this movie: 'Thank you for playing my game.'"

He then looked curiously at one of the supercomputers running at full throttle nearby.

Next to it were dozens of focused employees, reviewing rendered effects in real time.

"This seems like light work — just sitting in front of a computer. It's very different from the way VFX teams used to work in my day."

The young supervisor replied proudly, "That's the power of Unreal Engine. Here, let me show you something. How long do you think it would take to build this scene from scratch to your standards?"

Jesse thought for a moment. "A fully polished scene like that? At least two full days."

"With us? Just twelve hours. Three people."

Before Jesse could react, the young man continued, "Normally, in filmmaking, after building a digital scene, you'd have to spend huge amounts of time adjusting every second — the lighting, the wind, ambient feedback, and so on. But with Unreal Engine, we skip all of that."

He picked up a spare laptop and pulled up a rendered environment.

"In Unreal Engine, we just input the parameters. Look — within minutes, our cloud-based supercomputers can simulate all environmental changes across the next few minutes in real time. Sand drifting in the wind, light reflections across different surfaces — all accurately generated. That's the power of this engine."

Jesse stared at the screen. "Why can't other effects software do this?"

"Because of the database."

"Database?"

"Yes — behind our team is a massive, almost unimaginable data archive. It holds countless environmental and physics models. That's Unreal Engine's true treasure. Paired with our newest AI systems, the engine knows what kind of data is needed for any situation. If there's a mistake, we can adjust it manually — and the AI will learn from that for next time. It just keeps getting smarter."

"Sounds incredible. But honestly, I'm getting old."

Jesse shook his head. He couldn't understand at least seven out of every ten words the young man said.

Data?

Was data really that important?

He was beginning to see just how disconnected he had become from modern tech.

But thankfully, he could at least tell that this was truly a great tool. The specifics didn't matter as much to him.

"Unreal Engine... what a fantastic creation. The person who made this must be a genius."

The young supervisor grinned, a mix of pride and admiration in his eyes. "Absolutely. Just having the idea to use a game engine for movie effects already showed extraordinary talent. In my opinion, that person stands shoulder to shoulder with you, Director Jesse."

"Me?" Jesse laughed and shook his head. "I haven't done anything special."

"That's not true. You're one of the founding figures of the modern film industry."

"You're exaggerating." Jesse smiled. "But I am curious — who created Unreal Engine? Is he here? Is he the CEO of your engine company?"

"No, our CEO is just a professional manager. He doesn't know much about tech — just how to run a business. The one who created the engine is what we call the 'God of Games.'"

"What? A god?"

"Sorry, force of habit. He's the head of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment — the one who founded much of today's video game industry. That's why I said he's on par with you."

"That man..."

Of course Jesse knew of Takayuki.

He was one of the top figures in the industry. Jesse had heard of him, mostly for his success in gaming and his popularity with younger generations.

But he hadn't realized Takayuki had other achievements beyond that.

It was clear he needed to study up on this "founding father of gaming."