This is truly a very wealthy individual.
This was the shared thought of the several officials present.
In this case, it seems that there is still room to discuss raising the licensing fee a bit more.
"Since your company is so wealthy, we actually believe that you must be even more determined to secure this licensing. Our demands are not high; as long as your company is willing to make a one-time payment of $450 million, we would choose to grant you the exclusive licensing. How does that sound?"
At this moment, these people had already seen the data and information provided by Matsubashi.
Leaving aside the authenticity of the data for now, a simple guess based on the data provided by Matsubashi seemed quite reliable.
They thought it might be necessary to consider Gamestar Electronic Entertainment a bit more.
And the content in the file was related to YOO.
...
...
The data in the file was gathered by Matsubashi himself through an investigation, but the arguments and points in it were proposed by Takayuki.
The content was about YOO's crisis, or rather, the current crisis in the Internet of Things.
The internet in this world has not experienced much turbulence and has risen very quickly, becoming popular just as fast.
And this actually laid a hidden danger.
Countless capital investors were seeing the rapid expansion properties of the internet for the first time.
In the past, traditional physical companies expanded their user base by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands at most, with the highest growth reaching a million.
But in the internet field, they were aiming for hundreds of millions.
This left the capitalists on Wall Street astonished, as they were witnessing user base expansion happening so rapidly for the first time.
In traditional physical businesses, the expansion of user scale directly translated into real profits.
But capital investors, who still didn't understand the internet much, instinctively applied some practices from physical businesses to the internet.
This led to a surge in stock prices and valuations for many internet companies at the time.
Take Facebook, for example—it had already grown into a company with a market value of tens of billions of dollars, and this growth trend had not slowed down.
This was despite Takayuki constantly reminding Bob to be cautious. If Takayuki hadn't advised Bob to slow down, the market value growth would have been even faster.
In this world, the capital investors had not yet experienced the deceptive bubble of the internet.
However, in the past world, similar internet bubbles had occurred several times, and the reasons for both the creation and bursting of the bubbles were almost identical.
It all boiled down to the fact that the internet's explosive expansion of users didn't lead to much profit—the growing users were just that, growing users.
This resulted in the internet bubble at the beginning of the 2000s and later bubbles in Silicon Valley.
Only later, when the internet slowly discovered new profit growth points, did the internet start to stabilize.
Right now, most internet companies in this world are focused solely on expansion, with very little consideration for the profits after expansion.
Especially YOO.
This company is investing everywhere, acquiring everything, as if money doesn't matter. In this scattergun approach, YOO is growing rapidly, but it's very hollow.
Takayuki, viewing all this from the perspective of someone who has experienced it, sees it clearly.
But for the people in this world, they haven't seen through it yet.
Or perhaps those who have seen through it have already prepared to run away.
Before Takayuki mentioned this matter, Matsubashi hadn't realized it either.
But when Takayuki had, either intentionally or unintentionally, mentioned YOO's current situation a few times, Matsubashi began to feel that Takayuki made a lot of sense.
However, if this message got out, many people would probably laugh at Takayuki, claiming that he was just jealous.
Because he hadn't had the chance to profit from the internet industry, he could only sourly say that the future of this industry was uncertain.
Only a few can truly see through everything.
Now, Matsubashi was combining what Takayuki had once said with the data she had summarized herself, and presenting it to the members of the FIFA organizing committee.
The data was very detailed; even laymen, after reading it, couldn't help but feel that it was very well-organized and plausible, and that the internet indeed seemed very hollow.
However, they lacked foresight and were only half-believing.
When the committee proposed a one-time payment of $450 million, Matsubashi just smiled and firmly shook her head, rejecting them: "Sorry, everyone, while we are not lacking in funds, we are also not willing to be taken advantage of. We can make one more concession: a one-time payment of $350 million, and the close cooperation we promised earlier will continue. This is our bottom line. It cannot go higher."
The committee officials fell silent for a while, then huddled together to whisper. Matsubashi patiently waited for them to finish their discussion.
"Baishi."
"Yes."
A young subordinate of Matsubashi immediately approached her respectfully.
"Get me a GSL. It seems like these officials will deliberate for quite a while. Let's wait."
This time, Matsubashi was trying to keep herself as composed as possible, while also making sure to subtly convey the need for the FIFA brand. Even if she couldn't secure it, she would create the illusion that she still very much wanted it, to make Gamestar think that she was still highly interested.
Meanwhile, Matsubashi had already instructed another trusted assistant to contact the organizing committees of major European football events, such as the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League.
If they couldn't get FIFA, they could aim for the local events' licenses. In fact, that might be even more important right now—FIFA was no longer the top priority.
A man named Baishi soon took out a GSL handheld console and handed it to Matsubashi.
As a manager of a gaming company, she still knew how to play a little bit of games.
However, she was usually too busy to play more complicated games. Simple ones like Fruit Ninja or Tetris were just fine for passing the time.
Matsubashi stayed calm, even becoming somewhat engrossed in the game.
Meanwhile, the officials couldn't sit still anymore.
After whispering for about ten minutes, they finally returned to their seats.
"Ahem, Ms. Matsubashi, we have finished our discussion."
Upon hearing this, Matsubashi immediately turned off the handheld console and casually set it aside.
Then, she smiled and said, "Gentlemen, our products are excellent. Collaborating with a company like ours, which has a dominant position in the industry, is far more valuable than short-term profits. We focus on long-term cooperation, not just a few years of partnership. Not to mention, some companies' ten-year deals might just be a piece of worthless paper. Once their money runs out, they won't be able to afford the subsequent licensing fees."
"Yes, Ms. Matsubashi, you're right," the officials echoed in agreement.
Subtly, the initiative seemed to be slowly returning to Matsubashi.