(anonymised), a 47-year-old game director, working for Outer World Games studio in Osaka, Japan, on 16th September 2022 fell out of the window in his place of work. He fell down on a car parked outside the office building and died as a result of his injuries before an ambulance made it to the scene. Police officers secured the car, as well as the room on the 13th floor out of which he fell down.
The building administrators informed the police that very few windows could be opened in the building, mostly the ones that were used as smoking rooms in the past. But since banning any indoor smoking in 2020 in whole Japan, those rooms were converted to break rooms, where the staff can take a short break from their work. Due to the nature of the rooms and possible privacy violation, that part of the 13th floor was excluded from monitoring by the building security, so there are no recordings of who was inside that room at what time.
The open window (anonymised) fell out from was located in one of those break rooms on the 13th floor. The whole 13th floor is occupied by Outer World Games studio, a subsidiary of Kagekina Ugoki game publishing house. In the break room, police found a palm print on the window, the carpet fibres next to the window looked like someone dragged a soil of the shoe on them. The police officers checked the desk and computer in (anonymised)’s office, where they found an interesting e-mail regarding a court order from Shizuoka Prefecture.
After interviewing the colleagues of the victim, the police concluded that (anonymised)’s life recently took a turn for the worst. The game he was directing, "Dark Avenger 3" was very poorly received by the industry media and the users, the title was a financial failure. His superior, (anonymised), was trying not to blame him for that disaster, but their relations certainly have changed since the game premiere. (anonymised), was in recent times bitter and spiteful towards the co-workers and changed his usual habits. He used to take (anonymised) to a nearby restaurant, Golden Lotus for a lunch during their afternoon breaks, but in last 2 weeks he was keeping away from (anonymised) and other co-workers.
(anonymised), for last 3 years CEO of Outer World Games studio, supervisor of (anonymised) within the company. After the disastrous premiere of "Dark Avenger 3" he took a lot of heat from the publishing house for financial losses, but tried not to publicly blame (anonymised) for the game’s poor performance. Beyond the facade, however, according to other employees, he was putting a lot of pressure on the game director, to the point that (anonymised) might feel he was responsible for everything.
This afternoon, (anonymised) was in his office on the 13th floor, where he was taking part in teleconferences regarding other titles Outer World Games is currently working on. He is described by his employees as fair, but has a tendency to be quite harsh when things are not going great. He has a wife and two children.
Graphic designer, (anonymised), 48-years-old, was leading graphic designer on "Dark Avenger 3". He and the victim were pretty close during the production, almost every day they ate their lunch in Golden Lotus restaurant. This changed about 2 weeks before the death of (anonymised), soon after the premiere of the game. As (anonymised) described it, the deceased had changed about 2 weeks earlier, he became bitter and nasty, so their lunches became not really enjoyable.
(anonymised) lives alone in a small apartment, he is described by the co-workers as rather shy and reclusive person. He has a talent for dark themes in his work, the only thing "Dark Avenger 3" was praised by the media was stylish graphic design. During the incident he was in his office, working on a new project.
