August,10 2011 – Ortigas, Metro Manila
The elevator doors slid open with a chime, revealing bare concrete floors, loose ethernet cables, and a group of confused interns carrying folding chairs like they were ancient artifacts.
"Is this... the right floor?" one of them asked.
James exhaled, the heat from the move-in doing nothing for his already drenched shirt. "If you're looking for chaos, then yes. Welcome to Espector Studios."
The 12th floor of TechAxis One was buzzing with activity. Movers hauled crates marked DEV GEAR and WACOM FRAGILE across the open floor. Plastic wrap littered the hallway like battlefield debris. Somewhere in the back, someone had already set up a speaker blasting 'Moves Like Jagger'—probably Airi.
James adjusted the clipboard in his hand as Yuri walked up beside him, her hair tied back, tablet clutched tight, and a laser-focused look in her eyes.
"We're behind on the Creative Division's layout," she said bluntly. "They delivered the desks to 13F instead of 14F. Sam's team is setting up near the sound booths, which is not going to work."
James glanced toward the other end of the floor, where Sam was waving her arms at someone like a traffic controller on caffeine.
"Noted. Let's fix it."
The New Hires
By 9:00 AM, the new employees started trickling in—some wide-eyed, others already wearing company merch from orientation week.
James called out from the lobby, "If you're here for Creative, up to 14F. Engineers, head to 13F. Marketing—15F, top floor."
A guy in a FlapFlap Hero hoodie raised his hand. "Uh… is it true we're getting motion capture suits?"
Yuri didn't even blink. "They arrive next week. Don't break them."
That got a cheer.
The studio now had over 60 employees, from local designers and coders to remote contractors patched into their network via VPN. They had an HR manager, a legal consultant, and a part-time studio nurse—a suggestion that came from Airi after she passed out during crunch one too many times.
Up on 13F, the dev floor was slowly coming together. Network guys were running around, plugging in routers and triple-checking the load-bearing capacity of the temporary server racks.
"Where the hell's the patch notes printer?" someone shouted.
"Try the kitchen!" a voice yelled back.
James ducked into the meeting room they now called "Mission Control." Yuri was setting up a temporary operations station with two monitors, a pile of whiteboards, and a stack of floor assignment sheets.
"IT says we're still waiting on the second server cabinet," she said. "Also, the AC unit on 15F keeps shorting out."
"Of course it does."
He slumped into a chair and glanced at the rough burn chart for the month. Between the fit-out, furniture, deposits, and move-in expenses, they were looking at ₱48 million spent in 60 days. And yet… they weren't panicking.
Because the money was still coming in.
Airi was in her new corner office on the 14th floor, surrounded by interns who looked like they'd never seen so many sticky notes in their life.
She tapped her screen softly, voice barely above a whisper.
"U-Um… so… this is how we label animation passes… okay? I color-code everything so it's easy to follow."
One of the interns nervously nodded.
Airi tilted her head slightly, smiling, though her eyes sharpened just a little. "Also… i-if someone overwrites my rig files again… I-I won't be mad, but I might cry quietly in the corner."
A pause.
"And maybe… maybe curse you in very polite Japanese…"
On the 15th floor, Sam was introducing the new narrative team to the PR crew.
"I don't care how pretty the trailer is," she said. "If you say something like 'unlock epic loot' again, I will personally rewrite it in Comic Sans."
Laughter. Then typing.
James watched it all unfold through the glass, arms crossed.
This wasn't just a move.
This was a transformation.
At 4:00 PM sharp, the entire team gathered in the unfinished event space on 15F. The walls were still being painted, and someone had to unplug the vending machine because it kept making weird clicking sounds.
James stood on a plastic crate.
"Alright!" he called out. "I know we're all exhausted. There's still no proper signage, the bathrooms on 13F smell like glue, and half the chairs came in the wrong color…"
He held up his phone, showing the current live metrics.
FlapFlap Hero: 30 million downloads. Furious Birds: 20.5 million. Furious Birds Tactics: 9.6 million. Kart hit 10.2 last night.
"None of this works without you. And now we've got the space—and soon the structure—to keep doing it."
Yuri stepped forward beside him. "This is only phase one. We're not building a company to look good in a pitch deck. We're building one that can last."
Sam added from the crowd, "And if any of you are thinking of leaving early, I bribed the food court downstairs to give us discounted Jollibee."
More cheers.
James and Yuri were the last two in the building.
He sat on the floor of the 12F boardroom, cross-legged, going over more invoices. She leaned against the glass wall, sipping vending machine coffee, tapping away at her tablet.
"You good?" she asked without looking.
"Yeah," he said. "Just… tired. But good tired."
Yuri looked around at the empty space around them—still echoing, still imperfect.
"You realize we just built a gaming HQ in Metro Manila," she said. "That's not nothing."
James nodded, half-smiling. "We're not done yet."
She looked at him, steady.
"No," she said. "We're just getting started. This is the place where we are going to build more games!"