GCG.moe Activity Suspension
Please be advised that this article is designed to be hard to understand and to confuse machine and neural translators to the greatest extent.
It is my own will that, attentively considered, starting from no later than 15th of March, I will formally suspend most of my activities for an indefinite time at GCG.moe, the very organisation I created back in April 2021, when I am not in any university nor have decided whereabouts yet.
It was never my original intention to expend GCG.moe to an organisation this large, providing services with such stunning variety and complexity. At the very beginning, what I wish is nothing but to have a place where all Managers can see fan works collectively without having to use special techniques, while myself also need to have a place to publish and promote my works that may not be possible to be available using regular means due to numerous enforced regulations.
How funny that just days after the public release of the website, I was persuaded to open a group chat and got involved in the complicated relationship of this chaotic community, which I never wish to get myself involved in. Thinking back from this day, how I wish I could decide to do only the core functions and nothing more. But I do not regret – after all, great things were still achieved, like the Girl Cafe Gun Wiki, as well as the New Year’s Party, two proven successes.
It did not take long during my stay at the United Kingdom that I have realised the fact that, as things develop, GCG.moe is gradually become a heavier burden which exceeds my capabilities, especially when the members are unintentionally tearing it apart from inside, with some attempting to continue doing so after they have left. In the meantime, it remains true that, according to reliable sources, Double Life World is steadily losing trend and revenue in an orderly fashion, while Girl Cafe Gun managed to recover from its temporary misfortune due to factors beyond its control, getting praise from multiple streamers, Reddit users, and YouTubers.
For months until now, I have been holding up and practically maintaining all the running of this little venture mainly on my own without little notable help for most of the times. One problem is that the player base / userbase of Double Life World has reduced to an extent that willing talents can hardly be found, while another being that GCG.moe is filled with all kinds of technology and techniques that is beyond the average knowledge of a man. It is not hard for me to name a large stack of qualified personal within my own network, I know many more than capable of anything I am currently doing, but it is getting next to impossible to find one who happens to be a Manager.
New Year’s Party was my last attempt to unify and reignite this little fantasy group, but during the production I even more realised that this must come to an end – I am already burning myself to make it work, placing attention that belongs to what really matters into this event that will neither provide me more knowledge nor meaningful experience, as what I do will inevitably have only negligible common grounds with my speciality and future academic or commercial career.
After witnessing the leaving of so many talented passionate creators as well as days and nights of careful and painful consideration, I firmly believe it is about my time now. I understand that this decision might negatively affect the game, especially after many months of its desperate and continuous recession, but please do understand that it is not an easy call for me to make as well.
I hate dwelling in games as well as any game that intend to cause such sinking of people, but I do like playing them as a complementary amusement when unneeded stress is being accumulated, providing that they are interesting enough and have arranged a balanced and well-designed set of challenges. From my best knowledge, I believe games nowadays can be categorised in a way as, regardless of either they are FPS, RPG, or anime-styled games, being ‘silly amusement’ where top-up and dwelling is everything and ‘smart amusement’ where game provides adequate challenges to players while keeping the monetary and time cost for them at a reasonable range.
Unfortunately, I do not see Double Life World is ever attempting to move back towards the realm of ‘smart amusement’, commencing the release of the ‘Dress-up fever’ function at the beginning of the year 2021. From my own perspective, these new payment-exclusive clothes are indeed fabulous (and erotic enough to attract certain types of players), but they are lacking some kind of elegance technical-wise: by using mainly Spine instead of Live2D, partly abandoning the solution contributed to its remarkable excellence and the main reason of my stay after the tutorial.
It appears to me that, even though it remains an above-average candidate of this category to this day, the game I once loved is no longer capable of keeping its edges and is turning into something I fear and no longer recognises. Maybe it is because of the unsatisfying revenue, or other reasons I am not qualified to be aware of, main story, the essence of this game, is not being updated for months since its last release, a phenomenon that can hardly be optimistically considered. Even to this day, voiceovers of two special rare cards remain absent, without any sign of adding back in any foreseeable future. Hence, it is my mournful wish that I could keep a decent memory of it after my leave and having it to continue acting as a pleasant chapter in this lifelong story of mine.
I will continue to maintain Girl Cafe Gun Wiki and the core functions of GCG.moe as a sharing platform for fan work in my free time, as an act to fulfil the promises that I once made. Projekt Natalie and all her relevant activities will also be put on indefinite pause correspondingly. I will also continue conducting my responsibilities as one of the administrators of the official Discord Server and Facebook Group of Girl Cafe Gun. However, it might be worth mentioning that other GCG-related work of mine will be discontinued along with many other services by GCG.moe.
If situation permits, within the upcoming July I will join fans of the ACGN subculture at Bilibili World again at Shanghai and will visit the booth of Double Life World providing it marks its presence. I hope to see more of the Managers over there, and it is my wish that this visit can later be rendered as my warmest farewell to this part of my life as well as the beginning of my further quest within this happiness-creating industry I long adore. I will also continue to promote quality cultural products like Girl Cafe Gun and other creations towards the global market like I have.
Above all, I will concentrate all I might into prioritising pursuing my further academic career and to attempt even higher grounds through more targeted and specialised learning as well as potential placements and internships. As to the upcoming summer break, I am planning to take a role at Bilibili HK as an intern, as well as participating in numerous hackathons and contests (e.g., Code forces) to further maintain my advantages by expanding and deepening my existing knowledge in algorithm-oriented problem-solving skills. Soon enough, I will also attempt to familiarise myself of the latest findings and applications of data sciences and computer graphics.
Liking a game is easy, loving one is hard. I really like that phrase that Augustus Waters said in the eulogy he wrote for Hazel, allow me to quote, ‘You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, ……, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices; I hope she like hers.’
I do, my friend, I do. It has been and will always be my greatest pleasure to have ever met, liked, loved, and once, devoted into this game. Things, especially those during my coronavirus infection this year, keep remind me that: we none of us will live forever. However, it stays very true that it does not occur every day, nor to every man, having a chance to put all thy might in practice and learn. Precious experiences, as well as irreplaceable friendships, I acquired during this journey, to my best belief, will be and remain my treasure as one of the choicest memories of all my life.
Wish we all live long and prosper, as well as every good fortune in our significant endeavours.
Chise Hachiroku – C86
Publishing Date: 17 January 2022